iinrTrrr|!Bgp)pt>MrBlWWfl^^ 



liHE NEXT GEN 




FREDERICK" A. RHODES 




;se; 




Glass //Qy^ - 
Book j^L 

Copyright^ . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE NEXT GENERATION 



BY 

FREDERICK A. RHODES, M.D. 

President, Economic and Sociological Section, Ex- 
President and Ex-Secretary, Eugenic Section of 
the Pittsburgh Academy of Science and Art; 
Chairman Pittsburgh Morals Efficiency 
Commission. 




BOSTON: RICHARD G. BADGER 
TORONTO: THE COPP CLARK CO., LIMITED 



Copyright, 1915, by Richard G. Badger 



All rights reserved 



yjf f r 

The Gobham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 

JUN 18 1915 

©CI.A401424 

U> , ( \ 



PREFACE 

No man knoweth what a day may bring forth, and no 
body of men can declare what may be the condition of 
this or that nation a generation hence. To present a 
book on " The Next Generation " may seem presumptuous 
to the careful students of history. While our best plans 
for the future may be overthrown by unsuspected coming 
events, we must build for the future, let come what may. 
Since society cannot exist without government in some form 
or another and since a good state of government requires 
that a majority of the individuals be of a reasonable mind, 
any treatise which considers seriously those things which 
are for the betterment of the race should command some 
consideration. 

Does blood tell? Can a mother influence her daughter 
by thoughts, deeds and things seen during the develop- 
ment of her child? Can we safely adopt a foundling? 
Who is to blame that the child is bom deformed or men- 
tally defective? These are only a few of the many ques- 
tions which are continually being asked in any discussion 
concerning future generations. 

Any teaching which states that the son of a thief must 
steal or that the son of a drunkard is condemned to a 
drunkard's grave is doing much harm. We all agree that 
good parents with a good state of society predisposes to 
good children, but religion demands that all be given a 
chance. 

5 



6 PREFACE 

Any statements made prior to 1875 concerning the de- 
velopment of the body must be taken at a discount, for it 
was not until that year that Hertwig demonstrated that 
the ovum and the spermatozoon acting together caused 
fertilization. Much stated along these lines since 1875 
is of little value, because embryology is a science under- 
stood partially by few and completely by none. 

There are over £00 religions, and while the most of us 
believe all of the essential things, there are some details 
in which we disagree in part, even in our own particular 
religion. We must remember that a normal man has a 
free will and is not predestined to eternal punishment even 
though he be a Jew, Catholic, Unitarian, Presbyterian, or 
an unbeliever. 

Pure heredity for all our characteristics means strict 
eugenics, euthenics being impossible. This cannot be ac- 
cepted by any body of rational religious men. Practical 
eugenics with euthenics makes possible the salvation of 
sinners, even though so vile. It is the reward of justice 
tempered with mercy. 

It is impossible to discuss a scientific subject without a 
fairly good understanding of that subject. There is no 
more interesting and difficult subject to fully understand 
than man himself. Could the child in utero be influenced 
by mental impressions of the mother, some of the children 
born would be awful specimens of human beings. We 
thank nature; it is not so. Most children are born with- 
out physical blemish. Those marked, deformed and men- 
tally defective are such as the result of disease and injury 
on the part of the parents. Such conditions are due to 
the natural workings of physical laws. Maternal impres- 



PREFACE 7 

sions are not possible because at no time in the development 
of the child is it connected to the mother by means of the 
nervous system. The only connection is by the blood 
which cannot carry any impressions from the brain. If 
the adult is an enigma, the child at birth is more so. Why 
he presents this or that aside from " like begets like," 
is not only interesting, but often difficult to explain. 

In the last few years we have much evidence of eugenics 
gone mad. There are those who would cure all ills by 
having the next generation so ideal that all the children 
would be born perfect, at least to those who give the blue 
ribbons at the baby shows. To obtain such prize children, 
these faddists and poorly informed, would-be eugenists 
would breed men and women like chickens and Angora 
cats. Were it even possible to produce a generation of 
physically perfect infants, the problem of the adult de- 
terioration would not be entirely solved. Much could 
theoretically be accomplished by this perfect mating, but 
it must be remembered that some of our most perfect 
babies become poor citizens while some of our highly cul- 
tured men and women, whose lives have been most beauti- 
ful, and whose names shall be long remembered in history, 
were poorly nourished and were not of a physical type to 
command admiration. It would require many generations 
to eliminate many undesirable qualities from many se- 
lected perfect types of physical development, even though 
we could completely segregate them. We are all more 
or less hybrids or mongrels ; latent characteristics are con- 
tinually cropping out, and we blame a remote ancestor for 
some present imperfection, even though it was due to sin 
or disease in ourselves or our parents. 



8 PREFACE 

Is physical perfection a thing to be desired? Most of 
us on first thought would answer that it is. Yet, the 
various qualities are at best only relative. What would 
be a state of society in which all were of perfect physique, 
in perfect health with plenty of this world's goods? 
Would the world move as rapidly? Physicians, under- 
takers, policemen, physical culture teachers, misfit clothing 
merchants, etc., would need to turn preachers, for just as 
soon as man has all he needs, no worries, he often forgets 
his church and enters upon a life of ease and dissipation. 
This would probably be a very unsatisfactory place to 
live with no sick to care for, no needy to look after, noth- 
ing to stir our souls to acts of kindness and mercy. Such 
a condition might tend to the " survival of the fittest," 
with man reverting to the animal. 

In the various chapters of " The Next Generation," no 
attempt is made nor is it thought possible to provide any 
scheme of society where such a state of idealism can for 
generations to come attain whereby all will be physically 
and morally perfect. Attempts only are made to show 
how it is possible by prevention and education to eliminate 
much of the misery, sorrow and crime in this good old 
world. It is possible to demonstrate that physical laws 
always act truly ; when they are broken, physical sins will 
be committed, and " wild oats " when sown produce results 
which must be cured by physical laws. 



CONTENTS 

PASS 

Why We Are What We Are 13 

Eugenics: Meaning and Importance 28 

Eugenics: Biological and Sociological ... 36 

Parent and Child 42 

Life and Reproduction 47 

Variations -57 

Theories of Inheritance 61 

Determination of Sex 71 

What Conditions Are Inherited? 76 

Insanity and Alcoholism 83 

Syphilis and Tuberculosis ........ 95 

Defectives — Who Are the Sane? ...... 98 

Mind and Body 113 

Immigration 123 

Church and Eugenics . 138 

The Church, Society and the Social Evil . . .149 
Female Labor: Effect on Our Homes . . . .157 

Race Suicide 175 

Crime 184 

Poverty and Charity 190 

War and Future Generations 199 

Teaching Sex Hygiene 209 

Marriage and Eugenics 220 

Why Girls Go Wrong 233 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Why Men Go Wrong 240 

Who Is Responsible? 250 

Appendix 264 

Hereditary Insanity a Defense . 264 

What Eugenics Does Not Mean 265 

Modern Women — Maternity 265 

Eugenic Belief — Charity 266 

Criminals 267 

Value of Disease in Character Development . . . 267 

Eugenics: Biological 269 

Eugenic Limits 269 

Marriage Advice 270 

Sex Mutilations 271 

A Practical Study of the Social Evil .... 273 



THE NEXT GENERATION 

Practical eugenics includes euthenics, hence 
means both heredity and environment. 

"Eugenics is the study of agencies under *o- 
cial control that may improve or impair the racial 
qualities of future generations, either physically 
or mentally/' — Galton. 



THE NEXT GENERATION 



WHY WE ARE WHAT WE ARE 

There lived a man who raised his head and said, 
" I will be great," 
And through a long, long life he bravely knocked 
At Fame's closed gate. 
A son he left who, like his sire, strove high place to win; 
Worn out he died and, dying, left no trace 
That he had been. 
He also left a son who, without planning how, 
Bore the fair letters of a breathless fame 
Upon his brow. 
" Behold a genius, filled with fire divine," 
The people cried, 
Not knowing that to make him what he was, 
Two men had died. 

— /. E. M, Unknown. 

THERE can be no dispute concerning the scrip- 
tural statement that man born of woman is of 
few days and full of trouble. While our so- 
journ here may be pleasant or otherwise it must be ad- 
mitted that our birth was not due to any thought on our 
own part. It does not appear profitable to continue the 
old controversy as to how, why, and by whom this old world 
was created. We are here; we recognize our inability to 

solve unsolvable problems; we believe in a greater force 

13 



14 THE NEXT GENERATION 

than our mind and we are satisfied that there is a future 
life in some other form than that we now possess. 

Is the parent responsible for the child? Can a good 
condition of society exist without the majority of the 
individuals being good physically and morally ? The ex- 
istence of the state demands a condition of social adjust- 
ment for the welfare of all concerned; the majority of 
persons determine the physical, mental, and moral stand- 
ards of the various social units. In the final analysis of 
man, it must be concluded that morality is the world's 
problem to-day. Notwithstanding our supreme efforts 
to obtain as much as possible of earthly possessions and 
indulge in the pleasures of life, a state of true satisfaction 
is not attained by these things. 

In a recent number of the Lancet, David Nicholson, 
M.R.C.P., in discussing Mind and Motive, says : " Crime 
is to be regarded in the main as an occupation. It is too 
much to expect a young thing — an infant or infant 
brain — to rise superior to the compulsory education in 
crime with which criminal parentage and the criminal at- 
mosphere generally smother it. I defy the children of 
the most intellectual and cultured and moral Lord Chan- 
cellor or Lord Archbishop not to succumb under similar 
circumstances. Besides, the heredity idea to crime takes 
the heart and hope out of all philanthropic and legislative 
measures for the education and proper upbringing of chil- 
dren and youths." 

The father of an idiotic child, in answering my inquiry 
as to the possibility of his having been drunk at the time 
of the conception of this child, said that his wife had al- 
ways accused him of having been drunk at that time. It 



WHY WE ARE WHAT WE ARE 15 

is certain that alcoholism or illness in either parent at 
the time of the conception is very likely to affect the child. 
We must take a reasonable view of the subject and can 
say that the children of alcoholics may be defective, but 
are not always such. When they are we have an explana- 
tion. If a marksman only hits a bull's eye once in ten 
times, he is still too dangerous for any one to want to 
put himself up for a bull's eye. You can never tell when 
and where some things will hit. 

Sin is defined as a departure or transgression from the 
normal. A normal man is defined by the alienist as one 
who conforms to the customs and laws of the country, by 
knowing right and wrong. 

Sin is defined by the Church as of two kinds : original, 
or that inherent predisposition in every man to do wrong, 
handed down to us on account of Adam's sin; and actual 
sin, or our departure from known laws which are laid 
down for us to obey. 

Let us consider as a basis of argument in the remarks 
which follow, that we have before us a man of good phys- 
ical development. For our premise we grant his having 
been influenced by two forces : (a) the blood and mind 
of his ancestors ; and (b) the external influences to which 
he has been subjected since his birth. 

We may presume him to have had a very pious and sub- 
missive mother, a God-fearing and fiery-tempered father, 
a highly intellectual grandfather, a common every-day 
grandmother on his mother's side, while one of his great- 
grandfathers was of powerful physique, whose wife was 
an Irish lass of high spirits and later a great scold. 

As far as we can determine, the development of the 



16 THE NEXT GENERATION 

child in the maternal body is from the union of two germ 
cells, the ovum and the sperm, and is entirely organic and 
material. These cells unite, divide, and multiply, adding 
to themselves continually for their nourishment material 
substances from the blood of the mother. 

The child is born ; nothing of mind or soul that can be 
demonstrated has been added to the child in its develop- 
ment, except the potentialities of the cells in their differ- 
entiation in the formation of tissues and organs. Should 
the child die, the soul (can this be a creation of the human 
mind?) must take flight to regions unknown. Should it 
live and the physical development continue in a normal 
way mind is gradually developed until in later years it 
becomes the man referred to above, whom we will suppose 
to be a reasonable being. 

A missionary from a Protestant church preaches to a 
small gathering of heathen in Korea, and as is to be ex- 
pected, a certain number of them accept the teachings as 
new truths. They believe and are saved. Let us suppose 
then, there is a missionary from the Catholic faith, an- 
other a follower of Mohammed, another preaching the 
doctrines of Buddha, and still another and another, until 
many of the various religious beliefs are represented in 
heathen Korea. 

Our supposition is that each of these religious teachers 
invades a different section of that country and that in 
each case the missionary is blessed with a number of con- 
verts and is happy. Do any or all of those accepting the 
new religions understand the meaning of their new beliefs? 

Our conclusion must be that most people, regardless of 
their geographic location, accept and believe the teachings 



WHY WE ARE WHAT WE ARE 17 

of their own parents, sect, church, or tribe, without a sat- 
isfactory explanation as to why they believe as they do. 
All religions are to a great extent at least based upon 
mysticism, added to which we have superstitions which are 
taught from birth and which become the great determin- 
ing principle in their religious beliefs. 

It is quite evident from a study of history that there 
is no fixed code of laws for all people. It is also evident 
from a study of religions that each and every one of their 
teachings requires a strict observance of certain laws, 
based upon their individual understanding of what they be- 
lieve is right and wrong. All the lawgivers, whether Bud- 
dha, Confucius, Mohammed, Moses, or Christ, taught a be- 
lief in a supernatural Being, a higher ruling Power, who is 
all-wise, always present, and who administers justice with 
a firm hand. It is for this reason that their ideas of 
actual sin, or transgressions against the laws of God or 
man, are similar in many respects. Yet in spite of these 
universal teachings we recognize that many things right 
to-day are wrong to-morrow — that what is permitted in 
one Church is forbidden in another. Those things virtu- 
ous in one part of the world are sins in another part. 

" No man," says a theologian, " can demand the for- 
giveness of his sins. If forgiveness is granted, it is an 
unmerited favor, for which gratitude and praise is the 
appropriate response." 

Protagoras — " Nothing is, in itself, by itself, but only 
a certain relation to some other things." 

Socrates — " Not knowingly, nor voluntarily does any 
man do wrong. Nay more, he who should knowingly do 
wrong were a better man than he who should do the same 



18 THE NEXT GENERATION 

thing ignorantly. All virtue is intelligence, wisdom; and 
as wisdom embraces all virtues, virtue may be called a 
science." 

Aristippus — "Whatever contributes to pleasure is a 
good thing, as wisdom, virtue, friendship — good for the 
reason only; whatever interferes with it, an evil thing. 
Pleasure is good, but not the desire of pleasure." 

Plato — " There are three great principles ; sense, rea- 
son, and emotion. Emotion is inferior to reason, but 
superior to sense. These three potentates rule the soul; 
appetite, spirit, reason, like the three divisions of the 
plant, animal and man in nature. The soul has existed 
in a previous state, is indeed an eternal imperishable ex- 
istence. Virtue is knowledge; the two ideas are insepa- 
rable. No one is willingly or voluntarily evil ; only from 
ignorance does any man do evil. Where science is, then, 
there is knowledge of the true and good, and so there is 
morality. The vicious, ignorant man is a bungling 
artist." 

Euripides—"! know that what I am about to do is 
evil, but desire is stronger than my deliberations." 

Paul — " That which I do, I allow not, or approve not." 
Aristotle — " It is absurd to suppose that we knew all 
along certain things without knowing that we knew them 
until the moment of sensation and reminiscence. Sensa- 
tion is often erroneous in its conclusions, however reason 
is not so. Sometimes we desire real good, at others only 
apparent good. The basis of all moral acts is some natu- 
ral disposition. First there arises an irrational impulse 
to good. Reason comes in afterward with its sanction. 
Virtue does not come in life until reason is developed. 



WHY WE ARE WHAT WE ARE 19 

Men have power by their conduct over their imagination 
and conception. Those who sin ignorantly should be 
punished for their ignorance, provided they should have 
known. It is better to live gloriously for one year than 
for many years as the common herd." 

Spinoza — " Nothing is contingent since everything is 
determined to act and be by the necessity of its nature." 

Malebranche — " Passions differ from inclinations in 
this: the latter relates to the soul as their object, the 
former to the body. Passions are the impressions of God 
on us which dispose us to love our body and seek its wel- 
fare. Inclinations are impressions leading to the love, not 
of body, but of soul, as God, ourselves, our neighbors, etc. 
Virtue consists in pure intentions and dispositions of 
mind." 

Leibnitz — " Moral evil is based on the premise of 
human freedom, or the choice of many acts, all of which 
are physically possible. From various causes he chooses 
oft that which is ill — hence moral evil or sin ; yet in the 
end even this shall prove for the best as regards the 
whole." 

Hobbes — " Thought is only transformed sensation, so 
good and evil are only other expressions for pleasure and 
pain. Avoid the disagreeable and seek the pleasurable. 
Our volitions or desires are determined by motives exter- 
nal, so that we are creatures of irresistible necessity* 
Reason teaches to do whatever can be done to promote 
our own enjoyment. In other words, might makes right." 

Abelard — " Sin is, properly speaking, a voluntary 
error. The propensity to evil which we inherit is not 
itself sin. Only the consenting to evil is sin; only that 



20 THE NEXT GENERATION 

which is in conflict with our own moral consciousness." 
Descartes' Rules — (1) Obey the laws and customs of 

the country. 

(£) Adhere with constancy to a given course and be 

not easily turned aside from any proposed measure. 

(3) Take the side of moderate opinions, because in 
morals, that which is extreme is almost always wrong. 

(4) Labor to overcome yourself rather than fortune, 
because one's desires are more easily changed than the 
order of the world, and nothing is in our own power but 
our thoughts. 

Mill — " Because certain things are so in our experience, 
it does not follow that it is everywhere and always. Moral 
responsibilities do not involve freedom of the will. Vo- 
lition follows moral causes. Necessity teaches that a 
superior power overrules our destiny, and that our char- 
acters are formed for us, not by us." 

Spencer — " No idea or feeling arises save as a result 
of some physical force expended in producing it." 

Tyndall — " Thought has its correlative in the physics 
of the brain; it is probable that for every fact of con- 
sciousness, whether in the domain of sense, of thought, or 
of emotion, a certain definite molecular condition is set 
up in the brain ; this relation to consciousness is invariable, 
so that given the state of the brain, the corresponding 
thought of feeling might be inferred." 

Huxley — " All vital actions are the result of the 
molecular forces of the protoplasm which displays it. 
Even these manifestations of intellect, of feeling and will, 
which we rightly name the higher faculties, are not excep- 
tions to this rule, but are known to every one but the 



WHY WE ARE WHAT WE ARE 91 

subject of them, only as transitory changes of the relative 
positions of the part of the body." 

Maudsley — " The brain cells manufacture thought, 
emotion, and the various operations of what we call the 
mind. This is their function as really as it is the func- 
tion of other organs to secrete bile, gastric juice, etc. To 
think and to feel is as truly the function and province of 
the brain cells as is that of the stomach to digest food. 
If the mind is disordered, the consciousness partakes of 
the disorder, and reports accordingly, — that is, falsely. 
The man is conscious that he is king; or that he is made 
of glass, and the like. It cannot, therefore, be trusted. 
The soul is an entity in the sense in which a tree or a 
house is one by the combination and cooperation of the 
several parts of which it is composed. It is one only as 
the brain cells cooperating to produce a given effect, and 
the ceasing thus to act, the disorder of dissolution of the 
cells which constitute mental activity, would be the disso- 
lution of that unity, and in fact of the soul itself." 

A number of opinions of the greatest philosophers have 
been given. In some respects they agree, but in the great 
part they are at variance. After a somewhat careful and 
critical study of philosophy, it must be concluded that the 
age and customs of the country in which the philosopher 
lived determined largely the nature of his particular 
philosophy; this depending upon certain other factors as 
his own environment, observations and physical condition. 
It is found that many philosophers were deformed, sickly, 
and could not enjoy pleasure. The philosophy of the 
individual is not the philosophy of the nation. The only 
way many of these righteous men could uphold their ideals 



22 THE NEXT GENERATION 

was by living in solitude. Is it virtue in the monk who 
will not mingle with the mass of people, or in the old maid 
who is so homely, sour, etc., that she cannot be tempted? 
Is it virtue in those who are born free from certain emo- 
tions, sensations and passions? Seneca said that he who 
wished his virtue to be blazed abroad is not laboring for 
virtue, but for fame. 

Do we forget the adjustment of man to light, heat, 
physical conditions, etc. ? Know we not the incorporation 
or transformation of the inorganic into organic and back 
to inorganic in the metabolic changes of our body? The 
irritation of the already live tissues producing again dead 
substances. In all cases energy is transformed. In man 
we see the various products of force, dissimilarly arranged, 
giving at one time genius, at another power, ad infinitum. 
Possibly it will be only a few years until it can be demon- 
strated that we can discern, with the power of the mind, 
with our fingers ; mind being present in the entire body 
and not confined to the skull box. Could we analyze the 
complex structures in man, quality not quantity of cells 
in each, we would find there is exerted some force caus- 
ing metabolic changes which are eventually recognized 
in the psychical and moral manifestations of the one and 
same entity. The cells of the stomach, which determine 
the quality and the quantity of the gastric juice; the cells 
of the kidneys, which determine exactly what substances 
shall remain in the blood; the cells of the glands beneath 
the skin, which determine the nature of the sweat which 
leaves our body daily in a large amount; all these must 
be thinking cells. 

" When we remember," says Prof. J. Mark Baldwin, 



WHY WE ARE WHAT WE ARE 23 

" that in the search for causes in the natural world, the 
difficulties are vastly enhanced by the fact that single 
causes are never at work alone, and that it is the func- 
tion of experiment so to eliminate elements in a causal 
complex that isolated agencies may be observed at work; 
and when we further reflect that no single function of 
mind is ever found operating alone, but that all accompany 
and modify each, the inadequacy of simple observation in 
this field becomes apparent. 

" A sense stimulation, for example, may arouse an in- 
tellectual train, an emotional outburst, a course of action ; 
are all these effects of a single cause? A course of action, 
conversely, may result from an emotion, a thought, a sen- 
sation, an inspiration; can the simple description of the 
resulting action indicate which is its cause? External or 
bodily causes, an odor, a spoken word, a pain, and internal 
organic movement, may start a train. How can we single 
out the cause in the network by observation? Only one 
step can determine ; the reconstruction under artificial cir- 
cumstances of the conditions and the endeavor to exhibit 
a single isolated cause. This is experiment." 

Professor Rice says : " The temperament of the genius 
is a compound of exquisite sensibilities without adequate 
control. In the case of certain artists, the over develop- 
ment of their special senses, checks the operation of the 
higher inhibitory processes, which are perhaps naturally 
weak. All control is removed and the wild animal rages 
in her without restraint." 

Why did Cain kill Abel? Was the murderer a rational 
being? Did he inherit certain evil propensities from his 
parents, who themselves, although made in the image of 



24 THE NEXT GENERATION 

God, were tempted by the devil and fell? It is not profit- 
able to enter into theological arguments as to why we 
were created with the ever-constant tendencies to fall from 
grace ; enough to know that each and every one in varying 
proportions has in his own self inclinations to do those 
things selfish and apparently pleasing. 

Although many may deny, yet the fact remains that 
some of the sins of the father are visited upon his chil- 
dren and their children. The child is frequently born 
with a body so physically constituted that it is entirely 
impossible for a knowledge of right or wrong, or if it 
may know, it cannot resist the workings of certain phys- 
ical laws which compel an action along the lines of least 
resistance. 

What concerns us is how far can we determine our own 
acts ? How much responsibility can we place upon our 
ancestors? And how much of the good or evil in the 
world to-day and after years is charged to us, for which 
we shall receive a reward or punishment? 

Our Moral Obligations — 1. Duty is the result of cus- 
tom and experience and utility. — Hume, Spencer, Bain. 

%. Moral obligation is the innate sense of an external 
law and of our right and duty to conform to it. — Kant, 
McCosh. 

3. Moral obligation arises from the presence in him of 
the absolute revealing itself more as he advances in right- 
eousness. — Hegel, Green. 

Responsibility depends upon the conscious determina- 
tion of the will. As in plant life we see the influence of 
tropisms, viz., light, heat, electricity, etc., on its develop- 
ment and reproduction, just so in the higher forms of life 



WHY WE ARE WHAT WE ARE 25 

we find many influences acting upon various natures of 
the individual. In the human, reactions are very great in 
many so-called physiological functions, as menstruation, 
pregnancy, hunger, fatigue, etc., so great at times that 
there exists a veritable exhibition of a double personality, 
Jekyll and Hyde. More marked are the changes in na- 
ture due to poverty, infirmity, removal of sexual organs 
or organic disease. 

Some one has said that whatever is, is right. Hence 
he would say that if a thing is certain to happen it can- 
not but happen. A corollary would be, what is to be, 
will be, and a second corollary then is, if it could not be 
prevented, will could not change and freedom of will does 
not exist. We need not argue further along this theolog- 
ical line. Philosophy embraces both religion and science ; 
if a statement in religion is not scientific it is not good 
philosophy. It is better to say, that if it might have 
been otherwise, then the thing was a sin. 

Freedom of will implies consciousness ; a conscience im- 
plies a sense of obligation ; this in turn depends upon an 
understanding of right and wrong and the faculty at all 
times of reasoning as to the sin of disobedience, or more 
properly the deviation from fixed laws. 

In considering the dissensions between science and reli- 
gion, Drummond said that the spiritual laws are not 
analogous to the natural laws, but that they are the same 
laws. That it is not a question of analogy, but one of 
identity. 

Our conception of matter is very different from that of 
many of the philosophers whom I have quoted. Could 
they have been acquainted with the present known facts 



26 THE NEXT GENERATION 

and hypotheses in modern bio-chemistry and physical 
chemistry, could they have known the wonders of wireless 
telegraphy, etc., many of the wise (?) sayings of these 
philosophers would be entirely contrary to what they then 
proclaimed. 

All thought implies molecular activity of nerve cells; 
the activity depending on the power of these cells to re- 
spond to various stimuli. All energy, regardless of its 
nature, is dependent upon fixed laws. If cells (a) are 
acted upon by force (b) the result is action (c), but let 
cells (a) be affected by + or — force (b), or if cells 
(a) are -f- or — in ability to react, action (c) will not 
be manifest. Hence it naturally follows that if the nerve 
cells of the brain are fatigued, or poisoned by toxins cir- 
culating in the body, then the response will not be that 
of a normal man. It is only necessary to observe the 
effect of fever producing delirium, or alcohol benumbing 
man's higher intellectual faculties. 

In life's struggle to live properly innumerable factors 
are continually at work to alter the normal reactions of 
our body. Our social conditions are such that greater 
efforts are necessary to maintain a proper standard of 
living than existed in the time of our forefathers. The 
German story, Der Fluch der Schoenheit, is a good illus- 
tration of the many temptations in the life of the beauti- 
ful young girl to-day. 

In a recent observation of the inmates of an excellent 
reformatory, I believe that many of the boys and girls at 
that institution are no worse than many of the children 
in some of our homes. Many of our good children would 
have reacted as they have done had they been placed in 



WHY WE ARE WHAT WE ARE 27 

the same environment. The character formed by certain 
children when given an opportunity to develop their bet- 
ter faculties, convinces me that their bodies did not possess 
all the attributes essential for a responsible being. 

Laying aside all traditional views of the Garden of 
Eden and Adam's fall, with the theological dissensions 
regarding Adam's sin affecting all, what can we say as to 
our actual sin to-day? Our reasoning has been such that 
we can conclude that the man with a normal mind and body 
is a responsible being, and can will to do or not to do a 
thing. 

A sinful act may not be prevented to-day, but a nor- 
mal mind responds with repentance and a determination 
to prevent a second indulgence in the same sin to-morrow. 
A new environment must be created for the low power of 
resistance. The individual is dependent upon society, and 
society largely determines the acts of each individual. 
Therein lies an important duty of the Church to properly 
care for the individual members of the community. 

It naturally follows that a disordered body will produce 
an unreasonable mind, but as it is impossible for any one 
to tell at just what age the irresponsible child becomes a 
responsible youth or man, just so difficult is it to say that 
this or that man is sane or not, and is accountable for 
certain actions. As the good of the community is above 
that of the individual, so must the community or society 
in turn to a great extent be responsible for the individual. 



EUGENICS: MEANING AND IMPORTANCE 

THERE is no subject before man to-day to which 
the words of the song, " Let a Little Sunshine 
In," are as applicable as to the study of man 
himself. The important question is how each person 
should live that he may most benefit himself, his family, 
his country, and his posterity. 

The word " eugenics " is derived from two Greek roots. 
" Eu " signifies " good," and the last part of the word 
means " beginning," coming from the same root as the 
title of the first book of the Old Testament ; liberally trans- 
lated, the word implies " well born," or " good breeding." 
By some the word " genetics " is used synonymously with 
eugenics. Genetics implies beginning, birth, development, 
to be born, etc. This term is satisfactory for a class in 
elementary biology, but is inadequate for the meaning of 
good breeding, or the promotion of better social condi- 
tions. Eugenics means a study of conditions which may 
influence the parents, society, and the State in the de- 
termination of the character of future generations. An 
excellent definition of " eugenics " is that by Galton — 
see frontispage. To obtain a clear understanding of this 
subject we must know the effects of physical, mental and 
moral development, and the restraint of the same upon 
individuals. In these observations it is important to note 
how education, food, climate, disease, geographical distri- 
bution, alcohol, city and country life, sanitation, immi- 
gration, labor conditions, marriage and divorce, proper 

28 



EUGENICS: MEANING AND IMPORTANCE 29 

housing, poverty, age, physique, conditions of society, 
etc., may effect individuals and their children. Eugenics 
is studied primarily from the standpoint of the biologist 
and the sociologist. As an illustration of the difference 
of opinion among able scholars in the study of eugenics, 
let me quote briefly from a very few: 

Dr. F. A. Woods : " Experimentally and statistically 
there is not a grain of truth that ordinarily environment 
can alter the salient mental and moral traits in any meas- 
urable degree from what they were predestined to be 
through innate influence. 

" All evidence we possess renders it highly improbable 
that any of the ordinary differences in human environ- 
ment, such as riches or poverty, good or bad home life, 
have more than a very slight effect in modifying these 
complex and highly organic functions, the improvement of 
which is the hope of the altruist and the reformer." 

Professor Spillman : " Improving environment does 
not from generation to generation give better material 
for our schools to work on. We have been dealing with 
the wrong problem. The plain and evident course to pur- 
sue is for us to be more careful in the choice of our parents 
and grandparents." 

Havelock Ellis : " So far as practical results are con- 
cerned, it is not enough for men of science to investigate 
the facts and the principles of heredity, and to attempt 
to lay down the principles of eugenics as the science 
with which the improvement of the race is now called. It 
is not alone enough for moralists to preach. The hope 
of the future lies in the slow development of those habits, 
those social instincts arising inevitably out of the actual 



30 THE NEXT GENERATION 

facts of life and deeper than morals. The new sense of 
responsibility not only for the human lives that now are, 
but the new human lives that are to come ... is a social 
instinct of this fundamental nature. Therein lies its vi- 
tality and its promises." 

The first practical study of eugenics in America was by 
the eugenic committee of the American Breeders' Associ- 
ation, an association of scientists and practical men and 
women to study the development of plants, animals, and 
human beings. This eugenic committee was appointed in 
1908, and included among its members Dr. David Starr 
Jordan, Luther Burbank, Major Woodruff, Alexander 
Graham Bell, and Prof. W. E. Castle. The year follow- 
ing a permanent section of eugenics was formed by the 
American Breeders' Association; since which time many 
investigations have been made, and already much good has 
been accomplished. This society is now called the Ameri- 
can Genetic Association, and publishes monthly, The 
Journal of Heredity, devoted to plant breeding, animal 
breeding, and eugenics. 

To-day in many cities, either as scientific societies or 
as groups formed by churches for the study of sex-hygiene, 
parenthood, etc., the various phases of eugenics are being 
discussed. There is an ever-increasing demand for speak- 
ers by organizations which desire a better condition of 
society, physically, socially, and morally. 

The importance of good breeding is being realized more 
and more. At the meeting of the International Purity 
Congress, held in Minneapolis, November, 1913, there 
were fourteen papers dealing directly or indirectly with 
the subject of eugenics. Probably the best and most 



EUGENICS: MEANING AND IMPORTANCE 31 

pointed was by Judge Harry Olson, of Chicago, on " A 
Constructive Policy Whereby the Social Evil May be 
Reduced." He said in part: "Comprehensive figures, 
taken from all sections of the country, prove a start- 
lingly large per cent, of recruits from among women 
who have been mentally defective in childhood, subnormal 
children. The early detection of these defectives is im- 
perative, not only for their own benefit and happiness, 
but for the protection of society. The public schools 
should be used as clearing houses." 

The proceedings of the National Conference on Race 
Betterment held at Battle Creek, Mich., required a vol- 
ume of 625 pages. 

Epictetus said two thousand years ago that one horse 
would not say to another, " What fine bridles and sad- 
dles have you ? " but rather, " How swift are you, and how 
much can you draw? " 

Scripture says, " In the beginning God created the 
heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form 
and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. 
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 
And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. 
And God saw the light, that it was good; and God di- 
vided the light from the darkness. . . . 

" And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the 
herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after 
his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it 
was so. . . . And God said, Let the waters bring forth 
abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and the 
fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament 
of heaven. And God created great whales, and every liv- 



32 THE NEXT GENERATION 

ing creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth 
abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after 
his kind ; and God saw that it was good. . . . 

" And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living 
creature after his kind, cattle and creeping things, and 
beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. . . . 
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our 
likeness ... so God created man in his own image . . . 
and the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, 
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. . . . 
And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, 
made he a woman. . . . And Adam knew Eve his wife ; 
and she conceived and bare Cain. . . . 

" For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting 
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third 
and fourth generations of them that hate me ; and showing 
mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my 
commandments." 

Several years ago the writer urged a course or chair 
of eugenics in every large college and university. It is 
pleasing to know that this dream is rapidly becoming a 
reality. Many of these institutions have placed this study 
in their curricula, and in a few years no school of stand- 
ing will dare omit eugenics from the list of compulsory 
studies, while smaller schools will be compelled to give a 
course of lectures.* 

It is amusing but sad to realize that our public schools 

* In the March, 1914, number of the Journal of Heredity, the an- 
nouncement is made that there are now forty-four colleges giving 
either a complete course in eugenics or some lectures on it as a part 
of another allied course. Sixteen teach eugenics in their zoology 
department, eleven in their sociology department. 



EUGENICS: MEANING AND IMPORTANCE 33 

have expected the pupil to know the location of small 
islands in the South Pacific Ocean, the height of a moun- 
tain in Asia, the population of Honolulu, how many men 
fell in the battle of Marathon, to learn by heart " The 
Charge of the Light Brigade " and " Thanatopsis," trans- 
late and scan Virgil, memorize verses of the New Testa- 
ment in Greek, and find the value of " pi " in geometry, 
but not a word about eugenics. It is impossible to be- 
lieve the ignorance of natural physiological laws which 
many of our children exhibit at the time of graduation 
from our high schools and colleges. The average mother 
has failed to teach her daughter important truths, because 
she thought it was too delicate a subject to discuss with 
them. But things are changing. The father is teaching 
the boys, the mother is teaching the girls, and the public 
schools are teaching the pupils practical biology. Plants 
and lower animals are studied in such a way that the en- 
dowments of sex are more easily understood. " The 
proper study of mankind is man." 

Prof. Karl Pearson, of the University of London, in 
the Popular Science Monthly, on " The Scope and Impor- 
tance to the State of the Science of Eugenics," Novem- 
ber, 1907, stated : " It needs more than a little boldness 
to suggest within the walls of one of our ancient universi- 
ties that there is still another new science which calls for 
support and sympathy ; nay, which in the near future will 
demand its endowments, its special laboratory, its tech- 
nical library, its enthusiastic investigators, and its proper 
share in the curriculum. The true test of all technical 
education lies in whether we can answer in the affirmative 
the question: Does it provide adequate mental training 



84» THE NEXT GENERATION 

for the man or woman who has no intention of professional 
pursuits? If we can, then only may we assert that it is 
a fit subject for academic study." 

A report of the Eugenic Section of the American 
Breeders' Association says : " It is a pressing problem 
to know what to do to increase the birth rate of the su- 
perior stocks and keep down, proportionally at least, the 
contribution of the inferior stocks. Another great need 
is the simplification of the standard of living, for it is the 
inordinate desire for display that makes many persons 
hesitate and begrudge the expense of children." 

A prominent eugenist has recently said : " The fact of 
the matter, which eugenics hopes to mitigate, is social, 
and its roots lie in social clauses. It can be cured only 
by social remedies. Bracing up an individual here and 
there does not help; more are cast down in a day than 
are picked up in a year. Bringing about an occasional 
6 eugenic marriage ' only serves the immediate individuals, 
and serves them only until they learn that artificial mating 
without love brings no more social health than when a 
king mates his daughter to a neighboring prince for po- 
litical reasons. 

" Eugenics proposes its body of scientific fact as the 
vehicle for its social message. We are all to blame for 
these anti-eugenic things. There is a child condemned 
from birth to epilepsy or syphilis because of its father's 
sin ; but we all helped and permitted that father to sin 
by neglecting to do our job in eliminating the brothel or 
the saloon. There is a brood of feeble-minded children 
born to misery and to be a social cancer ; we are to blame 
in not demanding that the parents be segregated before 



EUGENICS: MEANING AND IMPORTANCE 35 

they became parents — segregated as though they had 
smallpox. There is a mother bringing a succession of 
under-nourished children into the world to be prostitutes 
and criminals; we are to blame for the slum where that 
mother grew and for the sweatshop where she played out 
her vitality before she married in desperation to escape it, 
or in the passion which was the natural result of her un- 
trained parental instinct." 



EUGENICS: BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL 

PLATO, in the fifth book of the " Laws," described 
what he termed a purification or purgation of the 
State, and said : " The shepherd or herdsman or 
breeder of horses or the like, when he has received his ani- 
mals, will not begin to train them until he has first puri- 
fied them in a manner which befits a community of animals : 
he will divide the healthy and the unhealthy, and the good 
breed and the bad breed. The best kind of purification is 
painful like similar cures in medicine, involving righteous 
punishment or inflicting death in the last resort." Charles 
E. Woodruff, U. S. A., stated some years ago, " When- 
ever the idea is suggested that some means must be taken 
to lessen the terrible modern burden of the pauper, insane, 
defective, and criminal, and that the race must be made 
better, it is at once imagined that the only way to do it 
is by copying the methods of the plant and stock breeder. 
Although these methods are hopelessly out of the question, 
the full absurdity of applying them to man is not realized 
until the matter is explained." 

Education for the criminal, fresh air for the tubercular, 
rest and food for the neurotic — these are very excellent, 
they may bring control, sound lungs, and sanity to the 
individual, but will they save the offspring from the need 
of like treatment or from the danger of collapse when the 
time of strain comes? Can they make a nation sound 
in mind and body? Should our highly developed human 



EUGENICS: BIOLOGIC AND SOCIOLOGIC 37 

sympathy longer allow us to watch the State purify itself 
by the aid of crude natural selections? 

It is generally agreed that criminals are due to environ- 
mental causes and not to heredity. Recent prison statis- 
tics show that many criminals are the children of parents 
who were moral, or whose immorality has not been attrib- 
uted to discoverable crimes. Few criminals are descended 
from criminals. 

We return our criminals, our insane and tuberculous 
after " recovery " to their own lives, and we leave the 
mentally defective flotsam on the floodtide of primordial 
passions. 

A few absurd experiments in marriage have been made 
without success. Selected marriages violate the normal 
moral sense of the higher races, and this of itself is un- 
natural, for morality in the long run is highly scientific, 
says Woodruff, as it is the crystallization of natural laws 
followed instinctively. Immorality is contrary to nature. 
Within the past few months many cases have come to our 
notice where some man or woman, who, believing that he or 
she was perfect from an eugenic standpoint, has adver- 
tised for an equally good mate with the hope of giving 
to the world perfect children. We have also seen such 
perfect children reverting to a former poor type. Prac- 
tical eugenics does not have to do with experimental mar- 
riages. Sanity must prevail in our efforts to better man- 
kind or else we fail. 

Our best hope to improve the human race is to discover 
the worst varieties and then remove the causes. We must 
know why so many children of normal parents drift into 
crime. 



38 THE NEXT GENERATION 

Bad food, bad housing, bad clothing, poor environment, 
and hundreds of adverse conditions have affected the poor 
child in its development into the adult. The aim of eu- 
genics is not limited to the selection of parents ; it includes 
all the measures which promise to improve the quality of 
parents or to prevent their degradation. " The people 
dwelling in the lower wards are not all equally good or 
bad, and that applies also to those living in the mansions 
of the rich. If, as there are good reasoning for suppos- 
ing, the unselfish and domestic in any class of society leave 
on the average more adult offspring than the self-seeking, 
the vicious and the depraved, we have here a contrary 
force working towards race improvement." — Woods. 

" All recognize the fact that the laws of heredity which 
apply to animals also apply to man; and that, therefore, 
the breeder of animals is fitted to guide public opinion on 
questions relating to human heredity. . . . We should 
impress upon the public the point that one certain means 
of increasing the prevalence of any hereditary character- 
istic in a community is to induce the individuals who pos- 
sess it to marry one another; and thus produce a more 
potent stock in the next generation." — Alexander Graham 
Bell. 

" The difficulty of applying to mankind the same meth- 
ods of breeding that are used with plants and animals 
has been considered by some writers as an obstacle to 
human progress, but in reality it would not be desirable 
to apply breeding methods to mankind, even if it were 
possible to do so. Eugenic reform is not likely to attain 
very wide popularity if it is expected to result in a condi- 
tion in which all the children of a family are to be as 



EUGENICS: BIOLOGIC AND SOCIOLOGIC 39 

much alike as twins. Too many writers on eugenics over- 
look the need of a broader and more truly biological point 
of view, and restrict their attention to the facts of hered- 
ity that have been learned from garden or laboratory 
experiments with domesticated forms. Young men and 
women who prize life highly enough will not be tempted to 
choose weak, diseased or defective partners, or to take 
the risk of bringing crippled or weak-minded children into 
the world by marrying into families that have shown 
hereditary abnormalities." — 0. F. Cook, United States 
Department of Agriculture. 

" If we wish to gain a knowledge of human heredity we 
must study human beings and not plants and animals. 
Much danger and confusion may arise when any facts 
drawn from our knowledge of the lower organisms are, by 
analogy, made to apply to man." — Woods. 

Eugenics is full of hope and appeals to the noblest 
feelings of our nature. Says Alexander Graham Bell: 
" The great hope lies in the fact that human beings pos- 
sess intelligence, and a desire that their offspring may be 
fully up to the average of the race in every particular if 
not superior." 

To-day our problem is for a vigorous race if possible, 
but above all this we are demanding a more moral people. 
We can account for the moral decadence of the ancient 
and mediaeval nations. At the present time similar forces 
are at work with the savage and civilized peoples of Asia, 
Africa, and the islands of the South Seas. The carnal 
spirit is rampant: polygamy, sexual relations, etc., offend 
civilized man. The pride of tribe conquest demands these 
conditions. The preservation of good people in intelli- 



40 THE NEXT GENERATION 

gent countries compels us to be filled with alarm as the 
birth rate falls with such nations. 

The practical problems of eugenics are many: Better 
homes, better society, more sobriety, less vice, an under- 
standing of good citizenship, better and more healthy chil- 
dren, less of the selfish spirit, peace on earth and good will 
to all — truly a proper and worthy ideal. May it be 
more and more a reality. 

Probably in about the order mentioned, the biologist, 
physician, minister, educator, editor, lawyer, parent, prop- 
erty holder and citizen have become interested in eugenics 
and will labor to make it a practical study. 

The minister thinks of the moral welfare of mankind, 
the lawyer of rights and liberties, the physician of the 
normal body, the civic reformer of good citizenship, while 
the eugenist labors for a condition which will promote the 
accomplishment of all these high ideals. 

In a restricted sense eugenics has been limited to the 
study of " heredity," pure and simple, with no consider- 
ation of those real factors which influence the individual. 
To this other phase of the question, which we understand 
as " environment," has been given the name euthenics, 
meaning " good influences," The practical man recog- 
nizes that the laws of heredity are not so fixed that re- 
gardless of the health, vigor, etc., of the parents, the off- 
spring will always bear true. Heredity and environment 
are inseparable, they go hand-in-hand, always working 
together. Many relief associations expect to take chil- 
dren of vicious parents from very poor surroundings and 
to reconstruct the child under good influences, believing 
that it will become a good citizen. On the other hand 



EUGENICS: BIOLOGIC AND SOCIOLOGIC 41 

many believe it is safe to entrust the sons and daughters 
of good parentage to any environment, feeling that their 
good blood will prevent them from slipping on any of the 
icy paths of sin. Can a child be safely adopted from a 
foundling home ? Do reform schools reform ? Is the good 
child always sure to become a good citizen? 

In studying researches as to the cause of intelligence 
or lack of such in the child, I am led to believe that if the 
character of the child differs from that of the parents, 
some investigators are too apt to call it reversion or 
atavism. The sudden bursting forth of great men — mu- 
tations, if you please — is held by some to be the result of 
seed sown by the Divine hand for a purpose. A crisis, as 
war, may be responsible for the greatness of many men. 
The time and the circumstances are determining factors. 
General Grant would probably have been as able a defender 
of Confederate rights had he been born of Georgian par- 
ents. 

In the extended research by Dr. Woods on " Mental 
and Moral Heredity in the Nobility," we find expressions 
like these, " a perfect conformation of the theory of 
mental and moral heredity," ..." the origin of the 
genius of William the Silent is not quite clear, since none 
of his ancestry were worthy of being called great." In 
a research of this nature I believe that the writer is too 
willing to call it a case of reversion or atavism. The change 
in the line of transmission of characters is frequently 
charged to a poor marriage. In searching for the an- 
cestry of Uracca, a tyrannical queen, Dr. Woods found 
that her grandfather had a violent temper, and her great- 
grandfather was an intriguer. 



PARENT AND CHILD 

IS the child responsible for its existence? Is the par- 
ent to be held accountable for the actions of the 
child and the adult into which it is to develop? 
Can we blame our parents for the training and teaching 
that we are such and such? That we are intelligent or 
uneducated? These are questions which demand the care- 
ful consideration of every thinking person. 

Are any prone to shift the responsibility of their exist- 
ence and actions upon an invisible higher being, or to 
blame their ancestors for what they may be? It is true 
that we are brought into the world without our consent 
having been asked, and it is also true, as reason tells us, 
that a great responsibility rests upon each and every per- 
son responsible for the birth of a human being. Natural 
laws work for the perpetuation and preservation of the 
individuals and the race. It does not follow, from care- 
ful observations that healthy, intelligent and moral par- 
ents will always have children who will become as their 
parents have been. 

Animals protect their offspring and nourish them until 
they are able to care for themselves, ofttimes better than 
man cares for his children. Generally speaking, good 
parents may have bad children; but good parents will 
more likely have good children if the community at large 
is good — if the surroundings of the child are for the 

best at all times. How willing we are to censure the pious 

42 



PARENT AND CHILD 43 

parents if the child goes wrong. We demand that society 
shall be of the highest possible type that each parent may 
produce and develop good children. With these thoughts 
in mind, can we look back and blame our parents that we 
are not better than we are? Should the parent neglect 
the child, or the child be left an orphan, then will that 
child become the ward of a relative, friend, or of society 
in general. 

By virtue of the many physical laws which enter into 
the mysteries of reproduction it is quite evident that no 
two persons are born exactly alike. Recent investiga- 
tions of the ductless glands have clearly demonstrated that 
the secretions from these bodies very materially change 
the physical and mental natures of many persons. To a 
great extent the nature of many a man and woman is de- 
termined by a greater or less output of metabolic sub- 
stances from the adrenals, thyroid, pituitary, ovaries, and 
testicles. Their influence for evil may be greater than 
the forces for good are able to overcome. This knowledge 
enables us to better understand the " law of sin in our 
members," as described by Paul. " For that which I do 
I allow not: for what I would that do I not; but what I 
hate, that do I." And again, " Now if I do that I would 
not, it is no more I that do it, but that sin dwelleth in me." 
Euripides said, " I know that what I am about to do is evil, 
but desire is stronger than deliberations." " All vital 
actions are the result of the molecular forces of the proto- 
plasm which displays it." — Huxley, It is high time that 
the Church recognized man as an individual ; it must know 
that individuals do not respond in the same way to temp- 
tations or to means of salvation. Disease and removal of 



44 THE NEXT GENERATION 

ductless glands do occasionally make the person better or 
worse morally. 

There is no greater fallacy taught than that we are 
born equal. Even the children born of the same parents 
under what may appear to be exactly similar conditions 
are different in many ways. One may become intelligent 
and a good citizen, reflecting the virtue of worthy parents 
in his every action, while another may be a disgrace to the 
same parents all the days of his existence. Birth plays a 
great part, but opportunity plays a greater, and it is 
this factor, that of our social laws and their demands, 
that must awaken the interest of those who study the 
questions pertaining to the uplift of mankind. 

After much careful thought and research in history I 
conclude that a good child may be born of parents rich or 
poor; but the same study shows that it is quite difficult 
for the child to be properly trained in a home where vice 
and poverty are evident or in a home where all is luxury, 
in which latter case the child is frequently given over to 
a nurse girl, governess, and fashionable schools. We no- 
tice and remember the cases where the boy has been born 
of poor parents and became a President of the United 
States, or on the other hand, where the child of the good 
clergyman went wrong. We do not consider the children 
of the average parents who have led an average existence. 
Strange to say, man presents little to attract the ob- 
server when all is normal. But let him be out of harmony 
in any sphere, physical, mental or moral, and he becomes 
an object of interest and investigation from many sides. 

The physician is frequently asked : " Is the child all 
right ? " If a child be born malformed, is it not asked 



PARENT AND CHILD 45 

as of old : " Who sinned that the child is born thus ? " 
We hear the expressions : " He is a chip of the old 
block." " How much she looks like her mother." " Blood 
will tell," and many others of a similar nature, signifying 
that the child is like the parents in many ways. 

The child of a Raphael will not necessarily become a 
great artist, nor is the son of a thief doomed to the pen- 
itentiary. Do not blame a remote ancestor for your sins. 

Because Mr. A is a drunkard it does not follow that 

he inherited it from his intemperate uncle. 

Jesse James, Jr., son of the outlaw, is a full-fledged 
lawyer. In a class of thirty-seven applicants for license 
to practice law, he stood at the head. His father was 
killed when the boy was at the age of eight. He has never 
tasted whiskey, beer or tobacco. 

The thirteen children of Jonathan Edwards and their 
seventy-four descendants have all been of normal upright 
character, except Aaron Burr. For the cause of Burr's 
actions some go back to his grandmother, who had shown 
herself to be an extremely clever woman, but of a most 
erratic temperament. No wonder many people are in- 
clined to reject the opinions of such scientists. 

If, as Patton asks, children inherited all their charac- 
teristics from their parents, would they have to be taught? 
The human family, like animals, do inherit many instincts 
which are for the preservation of the race. The ducklings 
incubated under a hen will surely take to water. The 
bird will fly : there is a natural tendency to seek food and 
safety. The illustration mentioned by Burbank on the 
inheritance of these instincts by the baby bear picked up 
by some miners within a few days after its birth — before 



46 THE NEXT GENERATION 

its eyes had opened, is well to the point. The bear be- 
came thoroughly domesticated, almost as, he says, an old 
maid's cat. One day, when mature, the bear was taken 
to a tiny salmon stream. This bear had never fished for 
salmon, but it was able rapidly to scap the onrushing 
salmon out of the stream, throwing them into a pile on the 
bank. It then sorted them into two piles, males in one 
pile, and the females in the other. Then with its sharp 
claw, it opened the female salmon and extracted the roe, 
which it ate with a relish. This consumed, it finished its 
meal on the other meat of the fish. 



LIFE AND REPRODUCTION 

IT is very pertinent in studying practical problems 
dealing with the various manifestations of organic 
structures, to make careful inquiry relative to life 
itself. Highly complex organisms, as animals, furnish 
questions as yet unsolved. Are we more satisfactorily 
acquainted with the life and death of the tadpole or of a 
grain of wheat? Explain life, its origin, its continuity 
by the many different methods of reproduction, and finally 
tell us why life ceases through death of the organism. 
Then, and then only, may we explain the various phe- 
nomena giving us physical characteristics and many men- 
tal and moral attributes. 

In order that we may intelligently discuss practical 
eugenics, it is necessary that we have a fairly good under- 
standing of the development of plants and animals ; after 
which we can make a comparative study of these and of 
human beings. We can then know what statements in 
reference to inherited characters in man seem unreason- 
able. We must not allow sentiment to permit us to accept 
and teach those things which are contrary to science. 
" Man is a man for a' that." We cannot yet be compared 
to prize chickens and thoroughbred cattle. There are 
still some great minds being carried about on small shoul- 
ders. 

The laws of compensation are still at work. The stu- 
dent who cannot excel in athletics may still have a greater 

47 



48 THE NEXT GENERATION 

incentive for study, and the boy who has to make his own 
way in the world may be a little more industrious than his 
rich cousin. Some one has said that the world could not 
endure the intolerable burden of a continuous line of great 
men. We could not even endure the permanence of great 
men of genius. " Nature kindly uses her greatest sons 
for great tasks, and then dissolves their powers in the 
common social group, in order to make securer the democ- 
racy of life." 

In the animal kingdom, I have defined life as the corre- 
lation of irritable tissues. Some classic definitions are: 
" Life is a collection of phenomena which succeed each 
other during a limited time in an organized body." 
" Life is a series of definite and successive changes which 
take place within an individual without destroying its 
identity." " Life is the continuous adjustment of inter- 
nal to external relations." A pollen of grain, acting 
through the pistil, sends its nucleus to unite with the 
nucleus of the ovule. Life results. Whence comes the 
vital principle? Is it created afresh for every plant and 
animal? A protophyte or a protozoon, having reached 
a certain size, undergoes a series of complex changes, 
ending in fission: One has disappeared, two have come 
into existence. In the individual state it has the vital 
principle. What is life in the divided state? 

The function of some organs is carried on for a time 
after removal from the body. The liver, if kept at a 
proper temperature, and supplied with blood, will secrete 
bile for a time. Likewise will many other organs if trans- 
planted or even removed and fed with blood, perform their 
function for indefinite periods. The activity depends 



LIFE AND REPRODUCTION 49 

largely upon the integrity of the cells of each organ. The 
heart of many animals under certain conditions will beat 
in perfect rhythm for quite a time after removal from 
the body. The cilia of the air passages and leucocytes 
still retain their functions for many days. Again we 
ask, What is life? The answer of many physiologists at 
the present time is, " Life is a series of fermentations." 
Ferment action is not only destructive, but constructive. 
Ferments are present in nearly every cell, and intimately 
concerned in all manifestations of life. 

Organic development is the great proposition or theory 
around which the facts and phenomena of the vegetable 
and animal kingdoms gather for correlation and explana- 
tion. One of the first steps toward this theory is the 
observed unity of all forms of life, as shown by the facts 
that plants and animals have about the same chemical 
composition ; that plant and animal protoplasms appear 
to be identical; that the germinal vesicle and sexual re- 
production are similar in each; that there is a great diffi- 
culty in distinguishing between the lower forms of animals 
and plants ; that plants and animals are cellular in struc- 
ture; that plants and animals as individuals develop from 
a bit of structureless protoplasm to a complicated or- 
ganism, each growing by the single multiplication of cells ; 
and that animals and plants are affected in much the same 
way by physical environment. Another fact is, that the 
offspring inherit some of the characteristics of their par- 
ents, but not all. In the study of development and repro- 
duction of living things, we deal with two different classes 
of organisms: animal and vegetable life. In the classi- 
fication of each of these two great divisions, we find at the 



50 THE NEXT GENERATION 

bottom of the scale of life certain organisms which are 
said by the botanist to belong to the vegetable world, 
while the zoologist claims them for his. Animals are 
born with recognizable germ cells, but plants do not show 
these until somewhat developed. 

The ease with which a plant may be reproduced by a 
cutting, or the production of hybrids by grafting, has 
been a great stumbling block to the scientist who claims 
that " like bears like," and to the pathologist who affirms 
that an epithelial tumor can arise only from epithelial 
tissue. It is true that in the lower forms of animal life 
the entire organism may be regenerated from a single 
part, thus worrying the theorist, who claims that all life 
is reproduced through the germ cell. It is safe to say 
that all of the laws which apply to reproduction and de- 
velopment in the vegetable world will not apply to all of 
the laws for the animal world; nor as far as it has yet 
been demonstrated will all of the laws for the higher forms 
of animals apply to man. It will appear that man is fre- 
quently a law unto himself. This applies not only to 
man as a class, but frequently to the individual man. 

Reproduction occurs in the animal kingdom in two 
quite different ways, sexually and asexually. Asexual re- 
production occurs in fission and gemmation. In fission 
the organism finally divides into halves, about equal, which 
grow to the size of the parent. In gemmation only a 
part of the body of the original individual develops into 
a new animal. Regeneration is the power of replacing 
parts of the body which have been lost by some accident, 
etc. Secondary sexual characteristics are the distinction 
between males and females, such as size, shape, color, etc. 



LIFE AND REPRODUCTION 51 

By hybridization is meant that in most cases it is possible 
for ova and spermatozoa of nearly allied species to unite. 
Parthenogenesis is a name meaning that the ovum can be 
developed without being fertilized, e. g., those of insecta, 
crustaceans, etc. 

Alternations of generations show that some animals 
produce both sexually and asexually. The asexual ani- 
mals produce by gemmation or fission sexual individuals 
whose fertilized ova again become sexual animals ; or two 
or more asexual generations are followed by a sexual 
brood, these again by more asexual generations. Heter- 
ogeny embraces all cases of regular alternations between 
sexual generations, whether these differ in appearance or 
in their mode of propagation. 

Atavism is the peculiarity seen in some animals, in- 
cluding the human, when the characteristics of the off- 
spring are not like those of the parents, but like those of 
the grandparents or remote ancestors. Ontogony is the 
study of animals as individuals. Phylogony is the study 
of animals as a class. 

The law of Biogenesis states that each living being 
arises from another living being, that there is no life 
without preexisting life, while spontaneous life cannot 
occur. Each new egg begins life as a single cell or egg. 
The egg does not contain any pre-formed structures that 
it hands down unaltered, but is so constructed that the 
same kind of structure is produced. 

The cells of organisms are constantly dying and must 
be replaced. In some tissues the processes are evident; 
probably no repair takes place in the highly organized 
tissue. The skin has every stage of cell life. The epi- 



52 THE NEXT GENERATION 

dermis is constantly being replaced from lower layers. 
Some structures increase in size by the formation of new 
fibers, and enlargements of old and new. Muscles gen- 
erally repair by new connective tissue. Nerve cells may 
be, but rarely are, newly formed. The lower the form 
of the animal, the easier it is to make good a loss and to 
reproduce. The deeper layers of cells in the skin can 
reproduce only similar cells. 

A root or leaf of some plant may give rise to an entirely 
new plant. In higher animals reproduction is sexual, and 
sexes are separate. The fertilized ovum has the power to 
reproduce other ova, also every body tissue found in the 
adult. Direct contact of the male germ with the ovum 
produces fecundation. The ovum is formed and dis- 
charged from the ovaries. 

Somatic cells are differentiated into tissues and form 
the body, giving life to the body. Germ cells have minor 
significance for life; they are for reproduction. Somatic 
and germ cells have no resemblance when matured. The 
cells from each group have a common origin in the parent. 
Both may have the same power of development. The 
distinction between somatic and germ cells is an expres- 
sion of the physiological division of labor. The differentia- 
tion is very clear in multicellular life, as the volvox. In 
higher life, the somatic cells surround and nourish the 
germ cells, this being their special function, and form dis- 
tinct sexual organs. In the early embryonic life the germ 
cells appear to be the same in both sexes. 

Until quite recently, most people believed that the sun, 
moon, and stars, the earth with all its varied forms of life 
and all material were created out of nothing. A careful 



LIFE AND REPRODUCTION 53 

study of the phenomena of life has led many students of 
botany, zoology and geology to the conclusion that special 
creation was not God's method in nature, but that some 
form of evolution or development was probably the method 
employed. " This is a beautiful view of life breathed by 
the Creator into few forms, probably into only one. Beau- 
tiful and wonderful forms have been and are being evolved 
from this simple beginning." — Darwm. 

Death is a cessation of life. According to the theory 
of the " survival of the fittest," it is due to the death of 
the individual that the race is made better, and that the 
population is not multiplied too rapidly. Weismann 
stated that the length of life of individuals of a species 
has been regulated by the natural selection of the individ- 
ual variations. 

The length of life is really dependent upon adaptations 
to external conditions and is governed by the needs of 
the species. The length of life is not determined by the 
constitution of the animal, for a queen bee may live for 
several years and the male for only a few weeks. Long 
life is hereditary. 

Evolution is the becoming visible of preexisting details 
of shapes. As before stated, the structure of both animal 
and vegetable organisms is divided into two forms of cells : 
the somatic or body cells and the germ or reproductive 
cells. In 1875 Herwig demonstrated that the egg and 
sperm acting together cause fertilization. The interpreta- 
tion of cleavage as a process of cell division was followed 
by a demonstration that cell division does not begin with 
cleavage, but can be traced back into the foregoing gen- 
erations, for the egg cell as well as the sperm cell arises 



54 THE NEXT GENERATION 

from the division of a cell preexisting in the parent body. 
It is therefore derived by direct descent from the egg cell 
of the foregoing generation, and so on ad infinitum. No 
doubt the effect of the somatic cells upon the ova will 
always be a mystery. 

It is quite apparent that as far as the male germ cell 
is concerned, all the characters inherited by the child from 
this parent must be contained in the germ cell, but it is 
not apparent that this cell was entirely independent of 
the somatic cells during its development. It is not con- 
ceded by all biologists that the ovum contains all the char- 
acteristics at the time of its maturation for the part fur- 
nished in transmission from the female parent. In the 
ovipara objections cannot be made for reasons quite ap- 
parent. On the one hand then, it is claimed that the 
ovum contains all the characteristics it conveys when the 
parent is born. On the other, it is claimed that the germ 
cell or ovum can be affected by conditions of the mother, 
from the time of birth until the birth of each respective 
child, thus transmitting many acquired characters, dis- 
eases, etc. How can the increased dexterity and power in 
the hand of the well-trained piano player so affect the 
molecular structure of the germ cells as to produce a cor- 
responding development in the hand of the child? It 
would appear that the child inherits from the germ cell, 
not from the parent body. Consequently the germ cell 
owes its characteristics not to the body which bears it, 
but to its descent from a preexisting germ cell of the same 
kind. 

It is believed by some that the age of the parent has 
much to do with the determination of certain qualities in 



LIFE AND REPRODUCTION 55 

the progeny. According to which idea, a male child of 
a father in the prime of life, with a well developed and 
muscular body, will become a stronger man than a brother 
born when the father was in the development period under 
30 or during his decline. In a similar way they would 
explain mental qualities as well as the likes or dislikes 
for certain arts or sciences. Personally I do not think 
the germ cells are as much influenced by the age and 
mental and physical development of the parent body as 
is claimed by the advocates of this theory. Robinovitch 
states : 

" (1) Most great men were not born of youthful 
parents; (2) the majority were not the first offspring; 
(3) the majority of great men were the youngest chil- 
dren." 

Let me ask what would be the physical condition of an 
adult woman whose parents, grandparents for six genera- 
tions, had married at from sixteen to eighteen years of age 
and had borne children at an early age? Would this 
woman at thirty years of age have a fully developed body ? 
Would she have cut all her wisdom teeth? Would her 
hair be a proper length; in short, would she be a normal 
woman of her age? 

In a recent Galton Eugenics Memoir, by David Heron, 
D.Sc, he says : " The conclusion was reached that home 
environment, as measured by clothing, cleanliness, nutri- 
tion, stature, and weight could not be the chief deter- 
mining cause of the differentiation of intelligence ; nor 
was defective physique its source. Other factors of en- 
vironment have yet to be discussed, but so far — and this 
generalization covers much more than the 400 coefficients 



56 THE NEXT GENERATION 

calculated in the memoir disclose — there is no sign of 
environmental condition producing an effect on the men- 
tality of the child at all comparable with the known in- 
fluence of heredity." 



VARIATIONS 

IN order that we may understand the practical lessons 
to be learned from a study of successive generations 
of any form of life, particularly the human, it is 
necessary to notice briefly the present accepted explana- 
tions of the factors and laws of evolution. The factors 
in evolution for plants and animals are: Variations, 
heredity, segregation and selection. To these four, we 
might add environment. Another very important force, 
affecting plant life and to a lesser degree animals and 
human individuals, is that of " tropisms." By tropisms 
we mean those reactions which organic matter shows when 
acted upon by heat, light, electricity, gravitation, etc. 
Who does not know the effect of these forces on plant 
life? A little thought makes positive the effect of heat, 
cold, darkness, altitude, humidity, etc., upon man also. 
In a discussion of variations we are confronted by two 
questions: What is a variation? and what is meant by 
" species " ? Darwin arbitrarily conceived that when cer- 
tain germs of animals showed differences sufficient, they 
were divided into species, these again differing were classed 
as variations, which in turn were subdivided finally into 
the respective individuals. 

In many writings, we see the terms " variation " and 
" modification " used, apparently implying any change in 
the individual during its life. On the other hand, as used 
by the majority, variations refer to an accident, etc., but 
are dependent upon natural selection, environment, etc., 

57 



58 THE NEXT GENERATION 

which alterations are transmitted to the next generation. 
In this class we can place the changes brought forth by 
DeVries in the " Evening Primrose," by Burbank in his 
work on many flowers, and by the altered " strains " in 
the breeding of animals and growing fruits. Modifica- 
tions are those acquired changes due to the use of a part, 
as thickening of the skin on the soles of feet, enlargement 
of the biceps, etc. These characters are not transmitted. 

The scientist is led to believe that in the process of 
development most of the structures of the body are as 
they now exist, in order that the individual may be the 
better able to subsist, protect itself from its enemies and 
propagate its kind. In our own body, what many call com- 
pensations, are in fact " adaptations " for the protection 
of the body. Immunity to disease is gradually acquired 
from a series of adaptations to small doses of poisons. 

It is a fixed law that in order to avoid confusion, every 
living thing, whether it be plant or animal, shall produce 
offspring after its own kind, thus establishing the law of 
heredity. Like begets like under like circumstances. 
While no one, from the scientist down to the most ignorant 
casualist, denies the matter of heredity, we expect off- 
spring to be much like their ancestors, yet many biologists, 
as well as psychologists, have devised different and an- 
tagonistic theories to account for heredity and its cor- 
relative factor, environment. 

Prine A. Morrow said, " Strange as it may seem, an alco- 
holic heritage is scarcely more likely to come from an habit- 
ual drunkard than from an abstainer who may be intoxi- 
cated at the moment of procreation for the first time in his 
life. In twenty-three families in which I have found among 



VARIATIONS 59 

children in good conditions, the existence of a degenerate, 
as infirm, or an idiot, twenty-two times I have been able 
to determine and make known to parents that one of the 
two was at the moment of procreation, either sick or con- 
valescent. I am firmly convinced that every pathological 
state and mental depression of the generators, one or 
both, has a manifest influence upon the product of con- 
ception and its future development." 

To a careful unbiased critic, it is evident that, in ap- 
proaching these very dark mysterious problems, each in- 
vestigator endeavors to work along certain preconceived 
lines, and consequently attempts to make every result 
conform to his prejudicial ideas. Quite often the student 
along any line becomes so enthusiastic over his own reason- 
ing and observations that he is in a condition similar to 
a person with aphasia. The circle of reception, reflec- 
tion, memory and action is broken. The impulse has been 
so intense that at some part of the circuit of reasoning 
there is a block, and the student is called a " crank." 

The investigators who were the first to produce anything 
like satisfactory evidence in demonstrating beyond theory 
certain laws of applied evolution, I refer to Darwin, 
Wallace, Lamarck, etc., have been and are still being 
severely censured for many theories which they did not 
proclaim. Much of the most recent knowledge along 
these lines could never have been obtained but for the 
work of these pioneers of this science. 

Furthermore, much of the controversy between present 
day investigators is due to the fact that it appears im- 
possible for one to interpret the views held by another. 
A writer in Science required eight pages to explain how 



60 THE NEXT GENERATION 

a certain scientist did not understand the term " Muta- 
tion " in an address he had made before the American 
Zoological Society. Read if you will the criticisms of 
Darwin: how one will state that Darwin was a firm be- 
liever in inheritance of acquired characters, another says 
he did not believe they are transmitted, and another knows 
that later in life he changed his views. 

Man to-day is, as far as we can ascertain, very like 
Adam. The animals which he had with him in the Garden 
of Eden ate the same way, walked the same, reproduced 
their young as do those of the present time. The anthro- 
pologist, paleontologist and geologist tell us that Adam 
lived but a few years compared with the time since the 
first beast trod the earth. Millions of years ago animals 
walked upright, and were so large that they were able to 
pluck the fruit from the trees. After serving their time 
they laid down and died, their fossils to be buried in the 
different formations of later years. 

These facts, I neither try nor desire to deny; suffice to 
say that if our idea of variations is correct, in the very 
few generations from our first parent until to-day, how 
very complex must our nature be if any of these altera- 
tions are transmitted from father to son! 

Strictly speaking, inheritance is the transmission to the 
child of characteristics and conditions present in either 
one or both parents and also in the germ cell or cells when 
the new individual begins its existence. Any influence 
modifying it after this moment is something acquired by 
an " already entity," it is not inherited. " Heredity has 
actually more power over our mental constitution and 
character than all external influences, physical or moral." 



THEORIES OF INHERITANCE 

IT is told that an impertinent man made inquiry into 
the ancestry of the great Dumas. A conversation 
somewhat as follows took place : " I understand, 
Mr. Dumas, that your father was a mulatto?" "Yes." 
" And what was your grandfather? " " He was a negro." 
" What was his ancestry? " continued the impertinent man. 
" He was an ape," replied Dumas. " You see my an- 
cestors began where yours end." 

Francis Galton in 1889 was the first to recognize that 
in the case of certain characters the results of inheritance 
is a blend of the conditions found in the parents, while in 
other characters inheritance is ultimately between the con- 
ditions found in the parents. It has been thought until 
recently that hereditary processes in general were of this 
sort and that any results other than a blend were excep- 
tional. It will be very helpful for those who desire to 
study the various social factors in their influence upon 
future generations to consider in a brief way some of the 
explanations by which the germ plasm, the male and female 
germs cells, and the body which develops and nourishes 
these cells, may be affected. 

What value is it for us to understand how two human 
germ cells, so small that we must use a microscope to 
observe them, by as yet unexplainable physical and bio- 
chemical forces, become a man or woman endowed with 
will, feeling, strength and a spiritual soul, to be punished 
in the present and future life because the body which 

61 



62 THE NEXT GENERATION 

developed from these two minute particles of protoplasm 
has not at all times behaved in a seemly way? 

To the eugenist these thoughts are serious by reason 
of the fact that these little germ cells carry in them the 
characteristics of ancestors to progeny from generation 
to generation. These cells may or may not have been 
affected by certain evil deeds of a grandfather or some 
illness of a grandmother. If they were, then you and I 
have to compete in life with others who do not have this 
terrible handicap thrust upon them. 

We say that " like bears like " under like circumstances. 
Either certain diseases of the parents, the effects of al- 
cohol, fatigue, etc., are manifested in the germ cells or 
they are not. Either the physical conditions acquired by 
the parents are handed down to their children or they are 
not. There is no guess work, no half way of doing things 
in nature. Some one has well said that the supernatural 
is the not knowable yet. Mystery is too often ignorance. 
A very little thought makes clear our duty. Society de- 
mands to preserve the health of its individual members, to 
diminish the enormous cost of keeping alive the defectives 
and undesirables and to protect present and future gen- 
erations from these unfortunates. If our ancestors have 
handed us certain good or bad heritages, physical, mental 
or moral, then we can in like manner transmit desirable 
or undesirable conditions to our children. 

For the above reasons, for a practical consideration, 
we may divide the theories of evolution and development 
into four great classes: (1) Those in which our char- 
acters are transmitted from parent to offspring un- 
changed — strict Weismann theory; (£) those in which 



THEORIES OF INHERITANCE 63 

the characters acquired by a parent can be transmitted 
to the offspring — strict Lamarekian theory; (3) those 
in which characters may suddenly appear, these to be 
transmitted to next generation — theory of De Vries ; 
(4*) those in which certain characters are dominant and 
others are recessive ; we can determine quite accurately 
these characters in the offspring — theory of Mendel. 

Weismann asserts continuity not only for the sexual 
cells, but for the germinal protoplasm, which he believes 
to pass along definite cell tracts, until it formed sexual 
cells. He states that the substance, which is a bearer 
of hereditary characters of species (the idioplasm of 
Naegele) lies not in the protoplasm of the germ cells, but 
in their nuclear matter. This he calls the germ plasm. 
A rational interpretation of this theory in its strict sense 
would be that the protoplasm which produces and nour- 
ishes the germ cell would be affected by alcohol, disease, 
etc. 

The Lamarekian theory is that of inheritance of ac- 
quired characters. In explanation of the theory we note 
that the use of a part leads to an increase of size, and 
disuse the opposite. Lamarck maintained that the desire 
to use a particular organ to fulfill some want led to its 
better development through exercise and that the result 
was inherited; not as has been stated of him that the de- 
sire of the animal for the particular part had led to a 
development of that part. He concluded that the appear- 
ance of stability is always mistaken by the layman for the 
reality, because in general every one judges things rela- 
tive to himself. The work of elimination of useless eyes 
of blind fish has been going on for hundreds of generations, 



64 THE NEXT GENERATION 

yet still incomplete rudiments appear. The teeth of some 
animals, which were formerly used for defense, are now 
used for mastication. In opposition to this theory we know 
that Brown-Sequard cut off the tails of mice soon after 
their birth for generations, and they were still born with 
tails. Circumcision has been practised by the Jews for 
thousands of years and must still continue to be. The 
feet of Chinese girls were tightly squeezed to allow the 
adult woman to wear a number two shoe, but since they 
are allowed to go unbound they become as large as those 
of the American woman. 

By the theory of DeVries we learn that occasionally 
for reasons not satisfactorily explained a plant or animal 
may show a structure so different from others of its kind 
that it appears to be an entirely different structure. This 
is often termed a " sport " or a mutation. When these 
extreme varieties are bred and cultivated under the best 
possible conditions the result is that many scientists state 
they have developed a new species. It is by the selection 
of the best and the survival of the fittest that many ex- 
plain the theory of evolution whereby we can trace back 
our ancestry to the lowest forms of life. It is by the 
selection of a few and casting aside the many thousands 
that Burbank has succeeded in producing such wonderful 
results in crossing various plants. And yet it is said that 
he has not produced a new species. 

The law of Mendel is one which requires special atten- 
tion for the reason that many scientific breeders are mak- 
ing successful application of this law in improving plants 
and animals. This application is worth millions of dol- 
lars annually in the production of new and better kinds 



THEORIES OF INHERITANCE 65 

of flowers, fruit, vegetables, animals, etc. And some 
eugenists have gone so far as to say that we should apply 
this law to man. It has been known for many years that 
the characters of the parents could be split up and re- 
distributed in the offspring of hybrids. 

By this we understand that two or more descriptive 
points of the animal as color, texture and coarseness of 
the hair, may be so combined in the germ cell of the parent 
as to be called a unit character and in a pure breed these 
points are transmitted as one unit. Now, by Mendel's 
law the parts in the unit are split up and redistributed, 
making the unit character of inheritance different. The 
application of the law requires that the two parents pos- 
sess certain characters which are opposed to each other, 
and which when crossed form what may be termed a char- 
acter pair. It is also important that the germ cell be 
pure as to unit characters. When such conditions exist 
in the parent there is then a certain fixed law of proba- 
bility of unit characters appearing in the offspring, which 
are so definite that the scientist can determine mathe- 
matically as to the characters of the succeeding genera- 
tions. 

Mendel found that in cross breeding between alternative 
characters, one uniformly dominates in the offspring from 
its very nature, while the other disappears. Mendel 
called the characters seen in the offspring Dominant, the 
unseen ones he called Recessive. The coat characters seen 
in the offspring, color, length and texture, are the three 
dominant characters, two of which were received from one 
parent, one from the other; the three alternate recessive 
characters are present but unseen. 



66 THE NEXT GENERATION 

When pure bred black guinea pigs are mated with red 
ones, only black offspring are as a rule obtained. The 
hairs of the offspring do indeed contain some red pig- 
ment, but the black pigment is so much darker that it 
largely obscures the red. In other words, black behaves 
as an ordinary Mendelian dominant. In the next genera- 
tion black and red segregate in ordinary Mendelian fashion 
and the young produced are in the usual proportions, 
three black and one red. 

These experiments illustrate, says Castle, two impor- 
tant principles in heredity : First, if as regards the hair 
alone there exists such a variety of characters separately 
heritable, how great must be the number of characters in 
the body as a whole, and remotely probable that any ani- 
mal will in all characters resemble any individual ancestor ; 
secondly, the experiment shows that a variety of new or- 
ganic forms may be quickly reproduced by cross-breeding, 
leading to the combination in one race of characters previ- 
ously found separately in different races. 

Bateson states that we will soon be able to produce a 
hybrid with the same accuracy as the chemist does a com- 
pound. In the second and later generations of a hybrid 
every possible combination of the parent characters occur, 
and each combination appears in a definite proportion of 
the individuals. Another example: When a pure polled 
bull (one incapable of transmitting the horn characters) 
is bred to horned cows, all the calves will be polled (horn- 
less) hybrids. Some, possibly all, of these will have im- 
perfect horns, which may be large or small as a pea, but 
their presence is a sure sign that the animal is a hybrid 
and not a pure poll. The polled character is a Mendelian 



THEORIES OF INHERITANCE 61 

unit character. 

As to what are and what are not character units in the 
Mendelian sense of transmissibility in the human family 
has not been determined. There is no doubt that it might 
be fairly well determined for physical characters if we 
were predisposed to select men and women for marriage 
with a view to the unit characters of their children which 
we know could be transmitted. Davenport states that 
very many characters, good and bad, are Mendelian in in- 
heritance, viz. : Stature, weight, facial expression, color 
of hair, general mental ability, special aptitude for music, 
art, mechanics, moral sense, temperament, etc. 

We know that children do not develop hair darker than 
the darker parent, i.e., dark-haired children arc probably 
never bred from flaxen-haired parents. Red-haired 
parents beget red-haired children ; red-haired children may 
come from glossy black hair, the gloss of which being de- 
pendent upon the presence of red pigment. Light brown 
bred to light brown yields tow, yellow, golden or red hair. 
But if we knew just exactly what would be the color of 
the hair, eyes, stature, weight, etc., of our children it 
would not change the minds of those who apply for mar- 
riage licenses in the least. 

In concluding the subject of evolution and reproduc- 
tion, let us look at a few of the many scientific explana- 
tions. As mentioned in a previous chapter, the Law of 
Biogenesis states that each living being arises from another 
living thing, that there is no life without preexisting life, 
while spontaneous life cannot occur. Each new egg be- 
gins life as a single cell or egg. The egg does not contain 
any pre-formed structures that it hands down unaltered, 



68 THE NEXT GENERATION 

but is so constructed that the same kind of structure is 
again produced. Should something affect the egg, we can 
imagine it might form a new combination on the same plan 
as the old, yet one that differed from the original in every 
detail of structure. This idea lies at the base of the trans- 
mutation theory. 

DeVries suggests by Darwin's doctrine of pangenesis 
that gemmules are small particles endowed with the power 
of division, and are the material bearers of hereditary 
characters. In this he distinguishes simple and complex 
components of higher and lower order. To the smallest 
material units belong fundamental qualities of life, as- 
similation, metabolism and reproduction by division. The 
next higher units are composed of groups of the smallest. 
The germ plasm must possess as many of these as there 
are in the organism, cells or group of cells, independently 
variable in the germ or later stages. A third group is a 
community of the second; these must be able to grow and 
multiply. A single large group would suffice for the con- 
duct of a single life history. The second classes are so 
grouped that in the highest they are liberated and become 
active when the time comes for development of that part 
of the body which they control. The highest groups are 
supposed to contain the inherited material for a complete 
new organism. It is suggested that they are tiny beads 
in the chromosomes. 

On the theory of descent all ancestors are supposed to 
have lived at some time in the past or present on the earth. 
If their remains should be preserved, we expect to find at 
least some of these remains to be like the present forms, 
while on the transmutation theory, we should expect to 



THEORIES OF INHERITANCE 69 

find most if not all of the ancestral forms to be different 
from the present ones. 

Within the period of human history we do not know 
of a single instance of the transformation of one species 
into another one, if we apply the rigid tests to distinguish 
wild species from each other. The evidence suggested 
itself to our early writers that the embryos of the higher 
forms passed through the adult stages of the lower ani- 
mals. The first writers of this theory found that the tad- 
pole resembled an adult fish. It was stated as early as 
1808 that the human fetus passes through its meta- 
morphosis in its development in such a way that it re- 
peats all classes of animals, but remaining permanently 
in none, develops into more and more the innate human 
form. The gill slits of the chick in embryo are not to 
be compared with the adult fish but with those of the em- 
bryo of the fish. It is significant that the gill slits appear 
as early in the embryo of the fish as they do in the bird. 

According to Darwin's principle of selection, when two 
germ cells form units, we do not find that the young 
show all the characters of the mother, plus those of the 
father — i.e., each peculiarity that is the same in both 
increased twofold ; on the contrary, the young is in a vast 
majority of cases not essentially different from either 
parent. Darwin thought that a large amount of the 
variation shown by domesticated animals and plants is 
due in the first place to new conditions of life, and also to 
the lack of uniformity of these conditions. No case is on 
record of a variable organism ceasing to vary under cul- 
tivation. Monstrosities cannot be separated by any dis- 
tinct line from slighter variations. He also thought that 



TO THE NEXT GENERATION 

the amount of use or disuse of a part had much to do with 
the variations, these being inherited, and generally known 
as the Lamarckian factor of heredity. Darwin thought 
that the changes in the body due to the disuse of a part 
could be transmitted to descendants. 



DETERMINATION OF SEX 

THERE is probably no one question so frequently 
asked the physician and to which the answer is 
always " no," as, M Can we determine before the 
birth of the child whether it will be a boy or girl? " 
Much has been written on this subject in the last few years. 
Investigators have written books telling the mother how 
we may have boys or girls. Kings have paid handsome 
sums to scientists for directing the diet of the mothers that 
boys may be born to perpetuate the royal lineage of the 
throne. As the chances are as much for as against suc- 
cess, the scientist who can persuade the royal gentleman 
that sex can be determined, certainly has all to win, and 
little to lose, in his attempt to convince the king that a 
son will be born. It is needless to say that a solution to 
this problem would create much happiness in many homes 
in all lands. It is quite sad indeed, to see parents with 
several daughters longing in vain for a boy, and vice 
versa. 

So serious is the problem and so earnest have been many 
worthy investigators, that years of study have been given 
to this question. Experiments have been made on many 
forms of animal life, but when the test is made on human 
beings, the solution is no nearer to-day than in the be- 
ginning. Nature certainly worketh in her own mysterious 
way. Life itself is unexplainable ; likewise we cannot tell 
why death ensues after a number of years. There are 
fixed laws of physical activity which maintain a certain 

71 



72 THE NEXT GENERATION 

balance in the workings of organic life. Probably the 
most interesting fact to note along this line is that the 
number of males and females born are about the same. 
The last census of the United States gave over 47,000,000 
males and over 44,000,000 females. Of foreign birth, we 
find over 9,000,000 of each sex. In the New England 
States there was only a difference of 22,000 in the sexes, 
and in the South Atlantic States only a difference of 
74,000 out of over 12,000,000 people. 

In one of our large cities for 1908 there were born 
7,644 males and 7,016 females; in 1909, 7,607 males and 
6,677 females; in 1912, 7,799 males and 7,267 females. 
We notice here about the same number of children born 
each year, regardless of living conditions ; and the pro- 
portion of boys and girls is very nearly the same for each 
year. 

It is not until somewhat along in the development of 
the child that sex is recognized. For this reason, that 
structure which gives rise to the sex organs has been called 
the undifferentiated gland, in the belief that the structure 
was different for each sex, even though it could not be dem- 
onstrated. According to this view it is impossible for 
the sex to be determined after fertilization has occurred by 
any kind of diet or mental impressions. 

Quite recently Ahfeld writes that he is convinced the 
sex is determined before fertilization occurs. On this 
hypothesis, sex is explained by a difference in the glands. 
Somewhat on this theory, Weill has suggested that the 
difference in the mass and in the motility of the two germ 
cells will account for the victor in the contest which is pre- 
sumed to take place. 



DETERMINATION OF SEX 73 

From such data as we possess, it has been claimed that 
with a few exceptions the primordial germ cells are sexually 
indifferent, i.e., they are neither male nor female, and that 
their transformation is not due to an inherent predisposi- 
tion, but is a reaction to external stimuli. That in the 
determination of sex, the problem of nutrition is not the 
only determining factor is shown by the long-known case 
of the honey-bee. Here sex is determined by fertilization, 
the males arising only from unfertilized eggs by partheo- 
genesis, while the fertilized eggs give rise to females ex- 
clusively, which develop into fertile forms (queens), or 
sterile forms (workers), according to the nature of the 
food. 

While these conclusions may be formed regarding some 
form of animal life, we are convinced that in man and all 
higher animals that the sex of the animal is determined 
in a very early period of its development. 

I quote from Densmore in " Sex Equality " : " Males 
and females, whether they be more or less alike, arise from 
the same germinal material. The germinal material itself 
is sexless ; that is to say, there is not a male and a female 
germinal material. Whether the male or female forms be 
produced depends on external influences of food, tempera- 
ture or other agencies." 

0. Hertwig says : " Every organism, whether male or 
female, develops from a fertilized egg cell apart, of course, 
from the occurrence of a sexual and parthenogenetic repro- 
duction. This material which in our case develops into 
a male is, as far as our experience can go, always the same ; 
and just when the sex of the organism is absolutely de- 
cided is a question to which no general answer can be 



74 THE NEXT GENERATION 

given. The constitution of the mother, of the father, 
the state of the male element when fertilization occurs, 
these and yet other factors have all to be considered." 

In " Evolution of Sex," by Geddes and Thomson, we 
note the following statement of A. Weismann : " Both in 
plants and animals essentially the same substance is con- 
tained in the nucleus, both of the sperm-cell and the egg- 
cell, this is the hereditary substance of the species. There 
can be no longer any doubt that the nuclei of the male 
and those of the female germ-cells are essentially similar." 

Professor Thomas, in " Sex and Society," quotes from 
various observers who claim that there is an abundance of 
evidence to show that good nutrition produces females 
and a scarcity of food, boys ; that rich regions yield more 
furs from females and poor regions more from males of 
fur-bearing animals ; that more boys are born in the coun- 
try than in the city, there the diet is richer, especially in 
meat; after war, famine and miseration, more boys are 
born ; when food stuffs are high and less marriages, there 
is a higher percentage of boys, etc. Professor Thomas 
assumes that the chemical constitution of the organism at 
a given moment conditions the sex of the offspring, and 
is itself conditioned by various factors as light, heat, 
water, electricity, etc., and that food is one of these 
variables. 

Wilson says that sex is not inherited; that the animal 
inherits the capacity to develop into male or female, the 
result being determined by the effects of conditions ex- 
ternal to the primordial cells. He believes that in regard 
to the influence of nutrition in the determination of sex, 
if any influence is made manifest at all, it is not the quan- 



DETERMINATION OF SEX 75 

tity of the food taken, but rather the quality which is 
important. 

Expectation and disappointment determine the policy 
of most people. With a happy expectation, plans are 
made from the air-castles we have been building for years, 
and if the long-looked-for boy arrives, the plans are exe- 
cuted. If not, in some oases the disappointment even 
changes the map of a locality or a nation. Who can say 
it is for better or worse? Had parents the choosing of 
the sex of their children the world would be in a topsy- 
turvy condition in a very few generations. Let us be 
satisfied with the uncertainties of life which develop in 
man the finer qualities and make for a better condition of 
society. Old Nature has been on this work for a long 
time and cannot be improved upon. 



WHAT CONDITIONS ARE INHERITED? 

ARE we a chip of the old block? Does blood tell? 
If your mother had married more than once, would 
you have the malformations of your father or an 
older brother's father, both having the same mother? 
Will our children have our habits, aptitudes, mental quali- 
ties, and any of our infirmities? An attempt is made 
to give as accurately as possible whatever information on 
this subject may be known to be reliable at the present 
time. 

The first consideration will be given to the inheritance 
of physical conditions, viz., malformations and disease. 
Before discussing these, let us look for a moment to 
three terms : Congenital, inherited, and acquired. In- 
heritance must come through the germ cell or cells. A 
disease to be inherited must have been present in one of 
the parents before conception. A congenital disease is 
one that was present in the child at the time of its birth, 
and is either in the strict sense inherited or acquired. 
This term is generally used as referring to a disease which 
was not inherited, hence an acquired condition, which in 
itself means all that the child receives from its parents 
after conception has occurred. 

Professor Orth says : " That which the child receives 
from its mother in the course of its development is not 
inherited, because the essence of heredity does not consist 

of the circumstances that the descendants have obtained 

76 



WHAT CONDITIONS ARE INHERITED? 77 

a particular peculiarity from their descendants, or that a 
disease has been transmitted to them by their parents or 
even their ancestors." 

There is probably no subject encumbered with more 
fallacy than heredity, as relating to the transmission of 
diseases. Laws of hereditary transmission are frequently 
ignored by medical authors. On the flimsiest evidence, 
they have attributed all kinds of acquired diseases, often 
of infectious nature, to heredity. Family histories are 
continually produced, other causes than direct heredity 
are ignored ; even in the absence of any family history 
evidence, it is not uncommon to allude vaguely to the 
probability of heredity as a contributory cause. Any 
investigation of medical literature will, I believe, convince 
any unbiased observer that specific forms of disease are 
seldom transmitted, but instead a lower grade of equilib- 
rium of metabolism is exhibited. 

There is no dispute among observers as to the trans- 
mission of certain malformations which are present in one 
or more members of each generation. Among these we 
find cases of six fingers, cleft hand, hare-lip, cleft palate, 
dextro-cardia, birthmarks, multiple exostoses, tumors of 
the nerves, errors of refraction, absence of pigment in iris 
(albino), forms of taxy, dwarfism, giantism, malforma- 
tions of sex-organs, etc. Lazarus-Barlow mentions a 
family where in four generations, of 27 descendants, 20 
had malformed fingers and toes, similar to a deformity of 
the first parent. 

A few years ago I took the following history: Mrs. 
H has given birth to four boys, has had no miscar- 
riages. She was at that time eight months pregnant. 



78 THE NEXT GENERATION 

Her condition was normal as far as the pregnancy was 
concerned. Has had a simple goiter since a girl. The 
first three boys were born blind. First one died at thir- 
teenth month; second one died at ninth month; third at 
twenty-first month. All of whom developed hydrocepha- 
lus. Fourth, six years of age, living and well. Mrs. 

H was one of eleven children. The eldest died at the 

age of four years. Youngest at age of two years ; eight 
were boys and three were girls ; three of the boys were 

born blind, and developed hydrocephalus. Mrs. H 's 

grandmother had eighteen children ; eight boys, two of 
whom were born blind. Nothing can be learned as to 
presence of hydrocephalus. No blindness has been mani- 
fest at any time on Mr. H 's side. Later. The child 

was born in October, apparently normal. A short time 
after birth I noticed eye trouble and had the child exam- 
ined by an eye specialist. He pronounced the condition 
one of congenital cataract, affecting both eyes. This 
child died of hydrocephalus at the age of seven months. 
Still later. — Another child was born apparently quite nor- 
mal, and was still so at six months of age. In four gen- 
erations, numbering seventy persons, seventeen (all boys) 
were either born blind or became so a short time after 
birth. These children developed hydrocephalus and died 
in infancy. 

In a family of eight children, four of them after the 
age of puberty had to be sent to a home for the feeble- 
minded. Other children seem normal. Parents were 
cousins. 

Miss A has the second toe lapped over the first 

toe: little toe lapped over the third toe. Space between 



WHAT CONDITIONS ARE INHERITED? 79 

second and third toes normal. Her mother and mother's 
mother had the same condition. 

Mr. C was injured in the army: had his arm ampu- 
tated. His son, a normal man, married a wealthy woman : 
the first child, a son (grandson of the soldier), had a 
similar stump of arm. 

Mr. D reports case of a woman, eight times preg- 
nant: second, third, fifth children were born anencephalic, 
the other children normal. No family history of this 
condition. 

Mr. Davis and wife, both colored : first child very light. 
They present the following history: Mr. Davis has two 
white grandfathers: his grandmothers both black. Mrs. 
Davis had one white grandfather, remaining grandparents 
black. 

Mr. L has a deformed arm, without a palm of the 

hand, but with rudimentary fingers. One of his daugh- 
ters has a similar deformity ; so has her child. 

Mr. U has normal arms, but one of his sons has 

the deformity of an uncle. 

Mr. W — — has stuttered all his life. His mother has 
stuttered all her life. He has two brothers, one of whom 
is as bad as himself. None of his sisters have stuttered. 
No stuttering on his father's side. His mother's mother 
stuttered. 

Family of six children: all of whom developed hydro- 
cephalus about the age of two years, and all of whom 
died before the age of three years. No hereditary history. 

Family of twelve children: all of whom are married; 
each have one child which is insane. The family history 
is excellent. 



80 THE NEXT GENERATION 

The following interesting history I obtained from two 
men who were members of a theatrical company: 

Mr. C. S , thirty-seven years old. Has a brother 

thirty-nine years old. Weight of Mr. C. S , ninety- 
three pounds, that of brother, ninety-six pounds. Height 

of Mr. C. S , three feet, five inches, brother, three 

feet, six inches. He has two sisters quite tall. Father, 
six feet, one inch, and weighs 180 pounds. Mother of 
ordinary size and weighs 130 pounds. Grandparents 

were all large, and born in Germany. Mr. C. S takes 

six and seven-eighths hat, chest thirty-five inches, in-seam 
of pants, fourteen inches. Went to school for eight 

years; has never been sick. Mr. B , thirty-three 

years old. Father very tall and thin. Mother very tall 

and slight. Mr. B weighs eighty-seven pounds, 

thirty-seven inches tall. Has two brothers, all large ; two 
sisters, one large and the other very small, being twenty- 
nine inches in height. This small sister is twenty-seven 
years, has been married for four years, has two children, 
both large, one being an instrumental delivery, while the 
last was without a physician. Her husband weighs 200 

pounds. All their ancestors were large. Mr. C. S 

has been married for four years, has no children. Both 
Mr. C. S and Mr. B have deformed chests. 

These are but a few of the many cases I have collected. 
They serve to show peculiar congenital conditions, most 
of which we cannot explain, either by heredity or influ- 
ences bearing upon the children in utero. All of the cases 
which I have not seen personally have been vouched for. 
I might say that I have never seen any cases where a 
mutilation, like in the soldier's grandson, has appeared 



WHAT CONDITIONS ARE INHERITED? 81 

in a succeeding generation ; I will be a " doubting 
Thomas " until I do. 

Malformations owe their causes to either intrinsic or 
extrinsic origin. The intrinsic causes are that either one 
or both of the sexual nuclei which enter into the germinal 
union may have been abnormal, or both may have been 
normal, but from their union a variety has arisen which 
from one point of view must be regarded as abnormal. 
It is also possible that disturbances in the processes of 
fertilization can give rise to pathological variations. 
When a similar malformation has been present in the par- 
ent, the case is one that has been inherited. The extrinsic 
causes include concussion, pressure, disturbances in nutri- 
tion of the child and infections. The malformations so 
produced are congenital, but not inherited. One writer 
says that the assumption that the occurrence of a birth- 
mark in a child in the same region of the skin as that in 
which the mother has a scar is a proof that this deformity 
is not inherited, inasmuch as birthmarks and scars are 
two entirely different pathological processes. 

In some physical abnormalities as hemaphilia (bleeder's 
disease), color blindness, etc., it is seen that generally the 
males are affected, but the disease is transmitted by the 
unaffected females. Myopia, short-sightedness, generally 
affects the same sex, i. e., father and son, or mother and 
daughter. When two parents are normal, with affected 
ancestors, the children will be normal, but if one of the 
parents is affected some of the children will most likely 
have the same condition. When both parents are deaf 
mutes, one-fourth, at least, of the children will be deaf. 
If both deaf mute parents are cousins, one-fourth of the 



82 THE NEXT GENERATION 

children will be deaf mutes. If the deaf mute parents are 
not relatives, 7 per cent, of the children are deaf mutes. 
Acquired deafness is not hereditary. 

There are many families in which are found many cases 
of cancer, gout, rheumatism, goiter, heart disease, lung 
disease, etc., but still these diseases cannot be said to be 
inherited. There is frequently no doubt a family predis- 
position on account of a very feeble resistance to infec- 
tions, which weakness may be increased by family traits, 
diet, form of living, etc., so that many an observer might 
without careful investigation conclude that these condi- 
tions were actually inherited. 

For similar reasons many nervous diseases as chorea, 
hysteria, etc., are said to be inherited. I have never 
blamed any girl for being nervous when she has been com- 
pelled to live in the environment of a hysterical mother. 
We must remember that in these diseases, as well as to a 
lesser extent, epilepsy, insanity, tuberculosis, alcoholism, 
criminality, etc., which will be considered in later chap- 
ters, there is an inheritance of predisposition to the dis- 
ease. The morbid condition itself is developed through 
the action of external harmful influences upon the central 
nervous system. 



INSANITY AND ALCOHOLISM 

WHILE medical opinions quite agree in regard to 
the transmissibility of tuberculosis and syphilis, 
there is a wide variance of opinion of the best 
men as to the inheritance of insanity, alcoholism, epilepsy, 
and different forms of degeneracy. In no line of research 
do we find so much controversy in arriving at a conclu- 
sion as we do in the inheritance of alcoholism and insan- 
ity. Equally intelligent men studying the same or similar 
cases do not agree. The conclusions are affected by the 
forces behind the investigator, by previous cases, by a de- 
sire to prove or disprove certain theories. It often re- 
quires almost a superhuman spirit of justice to permit a 
recognition of phenomena which are the positive results 
of physical laws. The reason for this being that the 
investigator is continually endeavoring to confirm certain 
preconceived hypotheses. I am firmly convinced that it 
is only occasionally that insanity or alcoholism is trans- 
mitted unless both of the parents are affected. This 
statement should be somewhat qualified, for we do see many 
cases where only one of the parents or only a grandpar- 
ent was affected and the disease is present in the child or 
grandchild. In such instances the germ plasm of that 
parent has been affected. Mott says that a hereditary 
predisposition is the most important factor in the pro- 
duction of insanity, imbecility and epilepsy. He further 
states that the mother transmits insanity more frequently 

than the father. 

83 



84 THE NEXT GENERATION 

We know that when both parents are neuropathic that 
all the children will be neuropathic. If the parents are 
normal, with a pure normal ancestry, the children will be 
normal. In examining the statistics of insane asylums, 
we find tables giving causes of insanity of the inmates. 
A careful study of these tables shows that very little de- 
pendence can be placed upon these statements for the rea- 
son that very many of the causes are those given by 
friends or members of the family, who have either not been 
able to obtain or do not desire to give the exact facts in 
the ancestry of the inmate. It is only in those institu- 
tions where a complete family history of the case is taken 
that any reliance can be placed in such data. 

Further, it is only in the past few years that any of the 
institutions for the care of our defectives, as insane, fee- 
ble-minded, criminals, paupers, etc., have included on their 
staff a competent psychologist or sociologist. It is ex- 
tremely important from an economical and remedial stand- 
point that such persons should investigate all cases in 
these institutions. Then our information will be more re- 
liable and we will be much better equipped to deal with 
these difficult problems. The writer hopes from time to 
time to make a personal study of many of our institutions 
with a view of obtaining a better method of classifying 
these cases. 

The time has arrived when we must come to a clear un- 
derstanding of the duty of eugenics. If we would believe 
many of the scientists that heredity plays as great a part 
as many of them claim, then the work of the Church, 
charitable institutions, and uplift organizations will have 
been in vain. The Church can never accept the teachings 



INSANITY AND ALCOHOLISM 85 

of these men. I agree with Dr. Maudsley, quoted below, 
that our social conditions with alcoholism, disease, etc., 
will in a very few generations destroy the vitality of the 
hardiest of races. 

" If all the insanity from all causes was wiped out to- 
day in three generations the amount would be as great 
as it is at present; if from alcohol alone, provided that 
people continued to live as they now do." — Maudsley. 

" Statistics will not show accurately the amount of in- 
sanity due to alcoholism, for in many so-called alcoholism 
cases alcohol has been only a sort of a means to bring out 
some hereditary weakness, such as epilepsy, which, had it 
not been present, no insanity would have occurred." — 
Dr. Walker, Dixmont, Pa. 

Dr. K reports 500 cases of inebriety. In 225 cases 

he was able to trace the ancestral history showing like 
conditions. In 125 cases he found deficient brains. Mr. 
Nicholl, studying school children, finds that of prosperous 
pupils, 32 per cent, had drinking parents, and 68 per cent, 
abstaining parents; while of poor pupils, 85 per cent, 
had drinking parents, and 15 per cent, abstaining par- 
ents. Out of 102 children in 25 families of heavy drink- 
ing parents, he found that 8 showed tuberculosis, 31 nerv- 
ous diseases, 41 drinkers, 6 degenerates, 4 idiots, and 
only 5 normal. 

Dr. H reports 1400 cases. In 613 he found in- 
temperance. Insanity was found in ninety cases. He 
was able to trace a degenerated condition or intemperance, 
etc., in two-thirds of the parents, one or both; he also 
found that the condition existed in one-twenty-fifth of 
the grandparents. 



86 THE NEXT GENERATION 

In a New York home for inebriates, insane, etc., it was 
found that of 600 confined in the home at the time, 265 
were inebriates, and 38 were insane. Inebriety was seen 
in the father in 168 cases, in the mother in 9, and in 
both father and mother in 12. Insanity was seen in the 
father in 3 cases, in the mother in 3, in a brother in 6, 
and in a sister in 7 cases. In discussing variations in 
man and woman, Ellis says : " Idiocy is mainly a con- 
genital condition, and therefore a good test of organic 
variational tendency ; insanity, though usually on a heredi- 
tary basis, is invariably an acquired condition, dependent 
on all sorts of environmental influences, so that it cannot 
possibly furnish an equally fundamental test." 

Dana recently states : " The most immeasurably im- 
portant factor in the attempt to limit and prevent insan- 
ity is to secure well-born children. To see that persons 
who have weak constitutions, or those poisoned, do not 
propagate their kind. This can be accomplished by long 
years of training and careful education. He says that 
if we could subtract alcoholism from our social life and 
nothing took its place we could cut out one-tenth of the 
cases of insanity brought on directly by this poison. We 
could possibly subtract a large number brought on indi- 
rectly. If we could subtract syphilis from our civilization 
we could cut out one-tenth more of the insane. But after 
all, supposing these impossible facts could be accomplished, 
there would still be left a large percentage of the alien- 
ated, and this percentage would include persons who de- 
veloped disordered minds because they were born with a 
tendency to mental degeneration. There is an increasing 
conviction among psychiatrists that some inherited de- 



INSANITY AND ALCOHOLISM 87 

feet, often the most subtle and difficult to recognize, is 
present in all those who develop mental disorders. With- 
out some original weak spot and the psyche or soma, a 
man who is infected will not get paresis or tabes ; the man 
who has fevers, toxaemias, will not get a delirium or insan- 
ity." Our later conclusions will not entirely agree with 
Professor Dana. 

" In regard to the effects of alcohol upon the descend- 
ants, anything which devitalizes the parent, unfavorably 
affects the offspring, and clinical experience supports this 
in the lowered height and impaired general physique of 
the issue of intemperate parents. It also records the fact 
that no less than 4£ per cent, of all inebriates relate a 
history of either drink, insanity, or epilepsy in their an- 
cestors." — Dr. Robert Jones, F.R.C.S., Medical Superin- 
tendent Claybury Asylum. 

" From the medical and scientific point of view we have 
this great physiological fact before us, that the first thing 
alcohol does in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred is to 
affect the mental working of the brain of the man who im- 
bibes." — Dr. Clouston, Medical Superintendent Morning- 
side Lunatic Asylum, near Edinburgh. 

" During the years 1861-65 there entered the asylums 
of France 14,983 insane persons. In the same space of 
time, twenty years later, there entered more than 57,000. 
. . . Dr. Serieux made researches, and found that of the 
relapsed cases, 78 per cent, were drinkers, while of vio- 
lent lunatics, 88 per cent, were drinkers." — The hemcet. 

In the 1913 United States Brewers' Association Year 
Book, under the heading of Alcohol and Heredity, some 
of the above quotations are given and many more. After 



88 THE NEXT GENERATION 

reviewing these, the writer of that association says, in 
part : " To begin with, several circumstances must be 
considered which most of the authors overlook. When 
one proceeds, for instance, as Dugdale in The Jukes and 
Lidstrom have done, by taking a male progenitor who is 
alcoholic and paying no heed to the female progenitor, 
and to the admixture of all the foreign blood which makes 
it possible for a family to build up one generation after 
another, one has admittedly foregone the possibility of 
judging how far any causative relation whatsoever can 
be supposed to exist between the alcoholism of the parents, 
grandparents, etc., and the defectiveness of the offspring. 
In order to arrive at correct judgment it is necessary to 
prepare and study not only family trees, but genealogical 
tables. . . . Thus the question of 4 alcohol and heredity ' 
may, for the present, be summed up by saying that, so 
far as hereby is meant the power of alcohol to injure the 
organs of heredity, research has not hitherto succeeded 
in showing that such an effect is produced. Moreover, 
the facts that have been gathered and critically worked 
over do not seem to support the probability of such a 
power; but its possibility cannot be denied." 

We cannot believe that because a man has been a 
drunkard his children are necessarily damned, yet there 
is much in the statement of Johnson, who says that there 
are in France two periods in each year for the production 
of degenerates : these are the periods of the vintage and 
the carnival. Here the effect of alcohol on the parent is 
such that at the time of conception the germ cells are 
poisoned and the result is shown in the nervous system of 
the children. 



INSANITY AND ALCOHOLISM 89 

Dr. Matthew Woods, at the International Congress of 
Medicine, held in London, in 1913, reported seven cases 
of epilepsy in children which were traced to alcoholic 
intoxication on the part of one or both parents, otherwise 
teetotalers, i. e., these parents were known as abstainers, 
but for some reason, as a farewell banquet, etc., a condi- 
tion of alcoholic excitement (for the first time in these 
cases), was followed with the consequent poisoning of the 
germ cells, producing the epileptic children. Dr. Woods 
quotes Maudsley as saying that epileptics, because of 
drink on the part of the parents, are as much manufac- 
tured articles as are steam engines or calico printing ma- 
chines. Molli has assured us that of all persons inherit- 
ing impaired nervous systems from drunken parents, from 
80 to 40 per cent, were epileptics. Djerine says that 
in France 51.5 per cent, of all epilepsies in children were 
due to parental alcoholism, and but 21 per cent, to paren- 
tal epilepsy. 

Dr. Demme's studies, conducted in Berne, Switzerland, 
covering a period of twelve years, gave this result: Of 
the descendants of ten very temperate families, 82 per 
cent, were normal, and 18 per cent, were feeble or sub- 
normal. Of the descendants of ten intemperate families, 
with nearly all the same number of children, only 17.5 per 
cent, were normal, while 82.5 per cent, were feeble and 
subnormal. Of this group, 43.8 per cent, died in infancy, 
while of the normal group only 8.2 per cent, died in 
infancy. 

It is quite agreed, then, that alcoholism in the parents 
is manifested in the children in epilepsy, feeble-minded- 
ness, insanity, immorality, criminality, pauperism, etc. A 



90 THE NEXT GENERATION 

woman drunkard who died early in the nineteenth century 
was the direct ancestor of 834 persons, of whom there 
were 700 records. Of these, 167 were illegitimate, 16& 
mendicants, 64 panderers, 187 prostitutes, 7 convicted 
murderers, and 67 convicted of lesser crime. 

Quite a lively discussion has been going on in England 
for the past four years on the question of whether alco- 
holism is the cause of degeneracy or is a result of it. In 
other words, does a man become a drunkard because of 
the continued use of alcohol, leading to paresis, etc., or is 
his alcoholism the result of a weakness which he inherited 
and which determined his desire for drink? The prac- 
tical man still believes that every normal person has a will 
and with the average opportunity he can refrain from 
such degenerate tendencies if he desires to do so. A most 
radical view, which but few would accept, is that given by 
Krafft-Ebing, and others, who say that while it is unde- 
niable that an excess of alcohol occurs in degenerate 
stocks, yet an intolerance is also an expression of degener- 
acy. This tolerance, they claim, in the abstainer is either 
because of an idiosyncrasy whereby he cannot drink or 
does not on account of parsimony. They assert that ab- 
stainers have degenerate offspring, in which the degen- 
eracy assumes the type of excess in alcohol as well as 
even lower phases. Certainly a little learning has made 
some learned men mad. 

It is frequently stated in articles on degeneracy that 
the percentage of alcoholism among the parents of the 
feeble-minded is so much, but no attempt is made to esti- 
mate the amount of alcoholism in the parents of the non- 
feeble-minded of the same class of society. Many assert 



INSANITY AND ALCOHOLISM 91 

the percentage of feeble-mindedness is not very great in 
the population at large. We often forget to include cases 
in " good families," where the patient is not confined in a 
charitable institution. The question arises which we 
would like to settle: When we find alcoholism associated 
with insanity, should we attribute the latter to the former, 
or is it quite as probable that the general want of mental 
balance produces the alcoholism ? 

" The latest and most authentic statistics show that 
over 10 per cent, of all mortality is due to the abuse of 
alcoholism, and fully 20 per cent, of all disease is trace- 
able to this cause ; also that over 50 per cent, of insanity, 
idiocy, and pauperism springs from this source. It is 
quite generally agreed that from 75 to 90 per cent, of 
all criminality is caused by the abuse of alcohol. These 
and other well authenticated facts indicate the necessity 
of a more exact medical study of alcohol and its effect 
and influence on society and the individual. " — T. D. 
Crothers, M.D., Hartford, Conn., Superintendent Walnut 
Lodge Hospital, 1905. 

Dr. Kerr observed that among 1500 cases of alcoholism, 
755 had a history of parental inebriety. Mott finds 5 
per cent, of the inmates of the London asylums related. 
The following case related by an observer gives us a fairly 

good idea of the problems : Mr. A is an epileptic. 

His parents were apparently healthy until along in life. 
They died, one of cancer the other of tuberculosis, two 

years after birth of A . Grandparents were healthy. 

A was consequently a weakling. The somatic cells 

of both parents were evidently much diseased at the time 
of the conception of A . In such cases we see that 



92 THE NEXT GENERATION 

infections and alcohol actually injure the germ plasm and 
produce nervous defects in the children. 

In some recent statistics by Gordon we note : " Bourne- 
ville, in 1896, investigated 1000 idiots and found alco- 
holic parentage in 62 per cent. Legrain's investigations 
show precocious mental disturbances. In 57 per cent, the 
subjects were idiots and imbeciles, and 44 per cent, were 
classed as insane, these being the children of alcoholic 
parents. Alcohol holds first place among all the poison- 
ous or noxious factors capable of producing degenerative 
conditions in races, individuals, tissues, organs, and cells 
which are transmitted to several successive generations. 
Congenital internal hydrocephalus, various meningocele, 
encephalocele, anencephaly, and spina bifida, can all be 
traced to inherited syphilis." 

Dr. K states that there is a transmission to drink 

impulse. Defective will power, physical disease, etc., are 
transmitted by alcoholism. The same authority claims 
that in inherited alcoholism, the conditions can be over- 
come by education, culture, etc. Morel says : " I have 
never seen a patient cured of his propensity to drink 
which was due to hereditary predisposition. Intemper- 
ance is so destructive to the length of life that the expec- 
tation of life of a man of thirty of intemperate habits is 
given as thirteen years, while that of a healthy farmer is 
given as thirty years. 

" The family histories collected during some years in 
the Galton Laboratory, as well as masses of other data, 
seemed to indicate definitely that extreme alcoholism was 
only consequent on the preexisting degeneracy of the 
stock. To those who have studied the heredity of physical 



INSANITY AND ALCOHOLISM 93 

and mental defects and noted the frequent appearance of 
alcoholism in such stocks, it must appear the height of 
absurdity to attribute deaf-mutism, dwarfism, and phys- 
ical deformity to parental alcoholism. If extreme alco- 
holism therefore, be, as we believe from our data, a conse- 
quent and not an antecedent of defectiveness, then of what 
service for eugenic purposes can be a campaign which 
confuses all grades of alcohol users, and which would 
not reach the root of the matter, if it succeeded in cutting 
off entirely all opportunities for the procuring of alco- 
hol ? One step only in this direction — the segregation 
of the mentally defective — would affect at least 50 per 
cent, of the persons who ultimately find their way into a 
prison, asylum or inebriate reformatory." — Prof. Karl 
Pearson. 

The Pennsylvania State Board of Charities, in its re- 
port to the Legislature, January, 1915, points out that 
considerable adverse criticism has existed because the State 
did not have an institution for the treatment of those 
addicted to the use of alcoholic drinks or intoxicating 
drugs. 

" While on this subject," says the report, " we are con- 
strained to remark, whether it be directly or indirectly 
or not within our province, that legislation looking toward 
the prohibition of the manufacture and sale of harmful 
products within our Commonwealth might be inquired into 
with laudable results, and on this subject of legislation 
generally, that which is preventive in its character is 
most desirable and might be profitably employed in this 
instance. In every class of institution within our charge 
indisputable evidence is constantly before us in the form 



94 THE NEXT GENERATION 

of the ravages of disease and delinquency due to the use 
of alcohol and drugs." 

New York State has 30,000 insane in her institutions, 
which require 11,000 attendants, superintendents, doc- 
tors, stewards, guards, and the like after them. Eight 
million dollars was appropriated by the legislature for 
the institutions. An editorial writer recently states: 
" If affairs are anything as bad as officially reported it 
must seem that the really feeble-minded are the voters of 
the State who have indifferently or blindly allowed them- 
selves to be so victimized by the politicians." 

In many States the present system of dealing with 
charities tends to political favoritism. It is absolutely 
essential that politics be divorced from our charitable in- 
stitutions. A comprehensive plan for the segregation of 
the feeble-minded is reasonable and economical. The 
good of society demands the most complete segregation 
of all who might be dangerous to future generations as 
well as a menace and nuisance to this. The intelligent 
consideration of this problem demands an unselfish policy 
on the part of our lawmakers and social workers. 



SYPHILIS AND TUBERCULOSIS 

FROM a practical standpoint it can be said that there 
are only two infectious diseases that may be con- 
sidered hereditary. These are syphilis and tubercu- 
losis, and the opinion of the best medical men to-day is 
that in a strict sense tuberculosis is not inherited; so we 
have but one infectious disease handed down from gener- 
ation to generation, viz., syphilis. There can be no doubt 
that this is the disease which is referred to in the third 
commandment of Moses, which reads in part as follows : 
". . . visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the chil- 
dren unto the third and fourth generations of them that 
hate me." There are authentic cases on record showing 
where this disease has appeared in the third generation 
without the second generation having presented any evi- 
dence of the infection. 

This disease produces more misery, infirmities, poverty, 
and crime than any several diseases combined, and is a 
greater " agenic " (against eugenics) force than any 
other, alcohol excepted. It is a most common thing to 
see a child born with this disease so severe as to cause its 
early death, neither parent having known that he or she 
had the disease, or if knowing it had considered it of little 
consequence and had married accordingly. A recent re- 
port of a New York State insane asylum states that 25 
per cent, of the cases of insanity in that institution were 

due to syphilis. We know that it is the cause of nearly 

95 



96 THE NEXT GENERATION 

all the cases of locomotor ataxia, a large percentage of 
cases of paresis, and other nervous diseases of the adult, 
apoplexy, malformations of the new-born, and premature 
births. Surely every intelligent man and woman can see 
the awful tragedy of human lives due to this one disease. 
Why then should any one, unless it be for selfish motives, 
refuse to see the importance of practical eugenics? As a 
eugenic factor in our social and economic conditions 
venereal disease will be given subsequent consideration. 

In order that the subject of inheritance of tuberculosis 
may be made clear, allow me to quote from Nothnagel, 
who says : " Baumgarten and others believe that chil- 
dren are born with the bacillus tuberculosis. The ma- 
jority of medical men assume that a certain predisposition 
is transmitted. Jani found the bacilli in healthy male 
sex organs in five out of eight persons who had died of 
pulmonary tuberculosis. Dogs have been infected by in- 
jection of semen from seminal vesicles of tubercular 
individuals. Other experimenters have found that if the 
uro-genital system is healthy, the sperma of tuberculosis 
patients are, with rare exceptions, free from the bacilli. 
Infection can take place through the placenta. An in- 
trauterine infection in any one case is proved conclusively 
if tubercular changes in the foetus are noted immediately 
or shortly after birth, so that post partum infection can 
be excluded. In many cases cited the mother had tuber- 
culosis. The autopsies of children show the slight pos- 
sibility of transmission, except in rare cases." 

I desire to emphasize as strongly as possible the fact 
that a child is very rarely born with tuberculosis. It is 
born with a weaker constitution and into an environment 



SYPHILIS AND TUBERCULOSIS 97 

which will soon lead to the infection of the child. A few 
statistics will be of value. 

Demme found out of 361 children in a hospital, but 
eight tubercular. Dannelongue in 1,006 cases, at one 
year of age, eighty-seven tubercular. Biedert, in 134 
autopsies, found 7 per cent, under one year of age. Heller 
at Kiel in the deaths from tuberculosis up to one month, — 
.0 per cent. ; two months, 0.83 per cent. ; six months, 11.3 
per cent. ; 12 months, 22.5 per cent. ; two years, 29 per 
cent. In 1,805 autopsies from report of Virchow, none 
had tuberculosis under two months. Epstein saw no cases 
of tuberculosis in the foundling at Prague; infants being 
fed by wet nurses. In the orphan asylum at Nurnberg, 
with average capacity of 100, many with a tubercular 
family history, Stitch saw only one case of tuberculosis 
in eight years. In the Munich Asylum, 41 per cent, of 
the children showed tuberculosis in both parents ; yet only 
two cases were seen in 620 children. There is no record 
of atavistic transmission of tuberculosis. 

Eugenic measures are accomplishing much in eliminating 
this disease. The child very rarely, if ever, inherits it. 
Segregate all the tubercular now living and it would be 
wiped out entirely, provided, of course, we killed all the 
tubercle bacilli in our houses, food, etc. 



DEFECTIVES — WHO ARE THE SANE? 

THE intense eugenic discussion of the day has 
brought to the public notice many of our social 
defects, some of which our law-makers are com- 
pelled to meet in the best way possible. When doctors 
disagree, it is quite difficult to know what to do with the 
patient. Yet, notwithstanding the different methods of 
treatment, practically all good citizens agree that some- 
thing must be done with our 300,000 defectives : this is 
the number in prisons, insane asylums, institutions for 
feeble-minded, etc., at the present time. 

It is estimated that in 1913, 500,000 persons were com- 
mitted to penal institutions in the United States. The 
number of the insane in the United States for 1913 is 
given as 200,000. New York, New Jersey and Pennsyl- 
vania together furnished over 50,000 of these. 

Who are the defectives? Have one interested go to 
the insane asylum, city poor house, county home and a 
psychopathic hospital; in these places he will find several 
thousand insane. Next have him visit a reformatory and 
an industrial farm and study the hundreds who would not 
obey their parents and teachers. Then tell him to go to 
a home for feeble-minded where there are hundreds who 
have been feeble-minded from birth. He should then visit 
the penitentiary, workhouse and the county jail and ex- 
plain why these institutions are so popular that at times 
it is almost a case of " standing room only." Having 

looked carefully over those who are clothed and fed at 

98 



DEFECTIVES — WHO ARE THE SANE? 99 

the expense of the tax-payers, then have him take a little 
divergence and call at the police stations early in the 
morning, and later in the day visit the Juvenile Court. In 
these places he will notice many who are being trained by 
their lives for a period of rest and relaxation in the in- 
stitutions previously mentioned. By the time the inter- 
ested student of sociology has seen this vast army pass 
in review before him, he will have arrived at that part 
of his social journey when he will feel like seating himself 
in some quiet place to ponder over the terrible things he 
has seen. 

Perhaps he may cry out in his bewilderment, " Oh, Lord ! 
How long must such things exist? Whose fault is it that 
these people are so punished? " Or should he be like the 
Pharisee, he may say, " I thank thee, oh Lord, that I 
have been better than these ! " Whatever his feelings may 
be, let him hasten to resume his travels. Have him enter 
the busy city and glance carefully at those whom he may 
meet in the crowded streets, observe the penitent ones who 
are entering churches, spend a few hours in the various 
grades of the public schools, and then when tired and 
weary from having gazed into the faces of the great 
masses of humanity, have him go home, study his family, 
and at last, before answering the question, " Do any of 
these who are free to do as they please, look like those 
in any of the institutions? " Let him look into the mirror 
for a moment. 

It is said that over 60 per cent, of those who live the 
life of shame are feeble-minded. I neither deny nor 
affirm the percentage, but verily believe that should any 
test applied to the men who caused them to become and 



100 THE NEXT GENERATION 

continue such, just so surely would many show a marked 
deficiency in their mental or moral storehouse. There is 
just as great a vacuum in the cranial cavities of one sex 
as in the other. 

Surely we are not all insane. At least some of us are 
of a reasonable mind. How then can we determine who 
is a defective? This article is not a burlesque on all 
efforts to separate the sheep and the goats, the sane and 
the insane, but rather an effort to cause good earnest 
people to pause and listen to what the wild waves are 
saying. It is a serious thing to stigmatize a rational 
human being, and is hereafter shown, the poor man with 
no means for defense has the same right to his liberty and 
a good name as his brother, who may possess much of this 
world's goods and have great influence. 

The story is told of a murderer who, about to be exe- 
cuted, was visited by an expert anthropologist, who care- 
fully examined his head, measuring it at every angle. 
After the examination was over the criminal asked, " What 
do you think of my head ? " The expert replied, " You 
certainly show the positive features and lines of a de- 
generate." The murderer then said, " If I had as ugly 
a face and misshaped head as you, I would want to hang." 
This story well illustrates the sad fact that we all must 
realize that there is no hard, fast, normal standard by 
which we can measure sane and insane men. 

Our defectives are classed as the insane, epileptic, im- 
becile, idiot, feeble-minded, criminal, etc. They are re- 
quired to answer certain questions; they are photo- 
graphed, examined physically and then properly classified. 
According to certain tests, children of a certain age 



DEFECTIVES — WHO ARE THE SANE? 101 

should be able to answer questions and show a memory 
requiring a fixed amount of mentality. For each school 
grade there are fixed tests. A psychologist had been 
subjected by a friend of his to some of these mental tests 
and failed to make a high average. It is needless to say 
that he was much chagrined at his poor showing. 

As already mentioned, it has been stated by many in- 
vestigators that over 50 per cent, of prostitutes are be- 
low a normal standard. While not disputing these con- 
clusions it certainly would be interesting to take one 
thousand men and a similar number of women, as they 
pass us on a crowded street, and subject them to the same 
tests which were applied to those who were found to be 
mentally defective. How many of these would have the 
intelligence of a six-year-old child, a boy or girl of ten 
or of twelve years of age? If many so examined should 
be deficient, should we class them as defectives if they had 
not shown any criminal tendency? If we should thus con- 
clude that many of those on the street are deficient al- 
though they have not been known to have shown any 
criminal tendency, the next logical question is, what deter- 
mines the criminal? Now, a further investigation will 
demonstrate that many criminals are intelligent and can 
successfully pass an examination for his being a perfectly 
rational being. What then makes the criminal? Is it 
the devil within the man which cannot be tested, or is 
it a poison like small-pox which infects by contagion? 
Can we quarantine only a part of those who might be in- 
fected and not those who do the infecting? We must 
begin on society. 

Dr. Arnold Geselt is quoted in a recent publication of 



10& THE NEXT GENERATION 

the United States Bureau of Education as saying, that in 
an ordinary kindergarten and in the first grade with a 
combined enrollment of 100 pupils we may expect to 
find one child feeble-minded ; one child who stutters ; two 
or three who seriously lisp; another anemic; a badly 
spoilt child; another babyish, a year or two retarded in 
mental or moral growth; and still another morally weak. 
There will be one " negative " child, passive, colorless ; 
one over sensitive, nervous child; another distinctly su- 
perior, eager, ardent, imaginative, sociable. We owe 
much to men and women who are giving their time freely 
to study abnormal conditions, but we must not always 
take their conclusions too seriously. It is a much more 
difficult task to interpret X-ray pictures than it is 
to make them. It is likewise more difficult to de- 
termine just what and how much of the conclusions which 
are given us in regard to defectives can be accepted. 
Again, allow me to insist there is no normal standard in 
religion, politics, morals, or in physical and mental types. 
Take 100 men at random on the street, in the shop, 
in the bank or in the church ; should we say to them that 
all should conform to a " standard type " as determined 
by a specialist? Probably he himself has indigestion, has 
a bad temper, believes in Christian Science and has few 
or no children. Practical sociology demands a reasonable 
consideration of the problems. 

We are told that both the insane and the genius have 
abnormal brains. We see genius and insanity in the same 
family. Genius is said to be both a product and a cause 
of degeneracy. Many men of genius are known to have 
been degenerates. Would the world be better had these 



DEFECTIVES — WHO ARE THE SANE? 103 

men been treated as we now treat our defectives? If so, 
should we consider in the same way a genius to-day? 

A clipping credited to the London Saturday Review 
says, " Most of the talk at conferences of doctors, sani- 
tary ' experts,' eugenics enthusiasts, lunacy specialists is 
widely and obviously fabulous, though in apparently un- 
impeachable figures. One must have first some definition 
of physical defect, moral flightiness and weakness of in- 
tellect. Almost every great man one can think of would 
be condemned by some congress or other. It is just as 
easy to prove a steady advance in physique, intellect and 
character as it is to satisf}' the nation that it is chiefly 
made up of puny and vicious imbeciles." 

Why is this treatment of the defective necessary? The 
answer is that society demands it. These defective per- 
sons and their progeny are a menace and expense to good 
society. Now, does society care? How many men in the 
best homes, men with great fortunes whose power is felt 
far and wide, do more real harm to society than many of 
our so-called degenerates? Granting it to be true, that 
the idle or the cruel rich are also harmful to society, does 
not deny society the right to protect itself from the bur- 
den of the feeble-minded, etc., constantly thrust upon us. 
How best to contend with the other part of this problem 
which has to do with oppression by the capitalist, with 
vice, etc., is one which must also be solved. 

In the United States each year there are several hun- 
dred murders. The murderer is classed as a degenerate 
by many. But the murderer as a rule is not of a class 
considered dangerous to society. He takes a life, for 
which he is generally sorry. Few murders are premedi- 



104 THE NEXT GENERATION 

tated. Many would like to kill, but for fear of punish- 
ment, present or future, do not. You may say that the 
murderer should be punished because he drinks, because 
he was drunk at the time. I do not deny the statement. 
Is he the only one who gets drunk? Who wants him to 
drink and who profits by his drinking? Hundreds of 
working men are being discharged by their employers be- 
cause they drink. This is a good thing for society, but 
do the employers drink? 

Do any " big men " get drunk? Go to their clubs and 
see. After too much indulgence they are cared for, put 
to bed, taken home in taxi-cabs and limousines. These 
same men might have become dangerous with the same 
amount of liquor had they not been guarded by their 
friends. You may say that the murderer was jealous. 
Does his wealthy brother ever become jealous? If not, 
he is probably able to have an affinity or two ; the privilege 
of the rich. Or you may say that the murderer is insane. 
Do people with plenty become insane? How much does 
it cost the State to prove it, or the family to show that 
it is not so? 

Now, if we determine defectives in the same way as we 
classify the genius, who has a part of his brain hyperactive 
at the expense of other parts, making an unbalanced 
mind, just so much must we say that the defectives in- 
clude all those who have diseased society and leave bad 
posterity. In which connection let us not forget that this 
great land of liberty has caused old Europe to give of 
her best sons and daughters in the belief that justice 
would be the same to one and all. Should all be weighed 
in the same balance, even the idle rich with the idle poor? 



DEFECTIVES — WHO ARE THE SANE? 105 

Those found wanting in intelligence must pay the penalty, 
for it has been said that " the fathers have eaten sour 
grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge " ; also, 
" as is the mother, so is her daughter." 

Right is might, and although the present generation is 
witnessing rapid and powerful twists of the old devil's 
tail, yet he still holds sufficient grip on the running gear 
of our civic and state organizations to permit many of 
the bondholders to forswear taxes or to prove alibis against 
any assertion regarding an incident containing evi- 
dence of a lack of sanity on the part of the defendant. 
Shall our reason be without result? The natural course 
of natural events will be that ere long things will right 
themselves. In the meantime let us improve where and 
when we may. 

Having learned that there are over three hundred thou- 
sand defectives in the United States who are a burden upon 
society, and who if allowed to marry and procreate will 
bring forth thousands equally as bad or worse, the ques- 
tion of remedy is before us. Sociologists are quite agreed 
that the good of society is paramount to the desires of 
the individual. It is for this reason we have our deten- 
tion camps and quarantine for immigrants, that we quar- 
antine those about us who may be infected with small- 
pox, scarlet fever, etc., frequently to the discomfort and 
financial loss of the individual, family or property owner. 
These are really good eugenic attempts to prevent the 
disintegration of society from the physical standpoint. 
The order from Scripture : " If thine eye offend thee, 
pluck it out, etc.," is particularly fulfilled. We make one 
sad mistake in much of this work ; we spare the individual 



106 THE NEXT GENERATION 

and spoil the community. We are prone to make the old 
diseased trees of society, grown in any old soil, in any 
climate, bear good fruit by removing the imperfect apples, 
peaches, cherries and quinces, in order to make the tree 
look better; but the tree still bears imperfect fruit. We 
permit the " yellows " of society to reproduce. The Gov- 
ernment orders all trees affected with " yellows " to be cut 
down and burned. We must likewise treat human defec- 
tives. We need not cut down and burn, but we must 
" remove " ; but this removal must consist in preventing 
these defectives from reproducing their kind. 

There are two methods of preventing the progeny of 
these defectives from being a burden upon us: (1) segre- 
gation; (2) sex-mutilation; both of which removes their 
progeny from society by not permitting such children to 
be born. Segregation is the ideal method if sufficient 
suitable institutions could be provided, and the defectives 
detained until positively cured or past child-bearing period. 
Segregation is very expensive, and to detain all defectives 
for so long a time would be a severe burden upon the tax- 
payers. Segregation of all defectives even until the time 
of the death of each individual, although so expensive at 
the time, would be very cheap in the end. If we could 
eliminate all such by this treatment, but such cannot be 
accomplished, because alcoholism, disease, etc., would re- 
plenish the ranks, we would soon again be in a condi- 
tion as bad, partially at least, as before we began our 
treatment. Another disadvantage of segregation is that 
on account of " rights " of the individual, claims of the 
family, etc., he is set free, may marry, have a family or 
produce illegitimate children, and our children then have 



DEFECTIVES — WHO ARE THE SANE? 107 

these to care for. 

Sex-mutilation includes either removal of organs or a 
less severe treatment called sterilization. The objection to 
these mutilations are generally sentimental. Sex-organs, 
they tell us, are sacred and must not be interfered with. 
Man's nature would be changed by such operations, hence 
mutilations must not be thought of. For the sake of 
argument, I will say that some form of sex-mutilation 
should be practiced on every positive defective as well as 
on many tubercular, chronic drunkards, etc. It is the 
ideal treatment. Children cannot be the result of mar- 
riage or illicit intercourse. Removal of organs can affect 
to a certain degree the nature of the boy or girl. The 
younger the person, the greater the effect of such re- 
moval. Sterilization in the male is a trivial operation, 
and one not dangerous in the female. There is no change 
in the nature of the individual. Our sex organs are given 
us for procreation, you say. Do you believe it, and does 
the present generation prove it? What about our Infant 
Mortality and Race Suicide? 

Why not look truth in the face? Thousands of parents 
will not have children. Why? Many desire children and 
are not blessed with such. Why ? Listen ! Almost as 
many cases of childless families are the result of the man 
being sterile as the woman. Why ? Disease has destroyed 
these organs we say are sacred and must not be injured. 
This is but half the truth and not the saddest part of 
marital woes. Again, many wives are rendered sterile and 
operations must be performed on account of disease ac- 
quired after marriage. Occasionally women must die as 
the result of social standards and sentiments. 



108 THE NEXT GENERATION 

Furthermore records show that there are one-fourth as 
many cases of abortion as there are children born. Abor- 
tions kill many women. It sterilizes thousands. Remem- 
ber most of these are self-sterilization. Do not forget that 
man self-sterilizes himself. Woman self-sterilizes herself. 
Each sterilizes the other. These are nature's efforts at 
preservation of a good race; the survival of the fittest. 
Most of our prostitutes are sterile as a result of disease. 
Who dares then to talk of sentiment and sacredness of 
sex organs to-day? Let him but visit our hospitals and 
see the mutilations which are daily made necessary on our 
women on account of venereal disease. 

If there is any one thing which should be given as a good 
reason for the votes of good women, it is the preventable 
sex mutilation. Had the men to submit to pain and re- 
moval of sex organs as do the women, there would be such 
a cry for a special session of legislatures as the country 
never saw, even in a money panic or a call for war. 
Venereal diseases would then be treated as are small-pox 
and the plague. 

Two arguments are made against sterilization which 
must be mentioned. One is that the sterilized man would 
be free to have intercourse without fear of children. Does 
he fear to-day? The other is that many married men 
would be glad to be sterilized, knowing that they would 
have no children. Such men should not have children and 
society would be the better therefor. 

Let us hope that sterilization will be the treatment of 
certain criminals, diseased and defectives in future years. 
Removal of organs should be reserved for severe forms 
of perversion. We are not yet educated to the necessity. 



DEFECTIVES — WHO ARE THE SANE? 109 

But, to-day, education must be toward the removal of 
defectives and toward a rational treatment. To-day in 
six states, certain criminals, insane and feeble-minded in 
institutions are being sterilized. 

Finally, should it be found in after years that any of 
these who might be sterilized by a clean surgical operation 
(not by disease) should have become sufficiently strong in 
mind to be granted the privilege of parenthood, a second 
operation could repair the damage done. This vision 
would do no harm and much good. This view is endorsed 
by many of our best medical men, clergymen and states- 
men, even to-day, 

Get in the procession at once! Do not hang on to the 
tail-end. Seven years ago people laughed when I men- 
tioned anything about eugenics. Now, every organiza- 
tion must talk about it. Get in ! 

It must be granted that the advocates of sex-mutila- 
tions have very little except theory to support them in 
their contention that no evil results can follow, for so far 
there are not sufficient data to justify an intelligent 
opinion as to the end effects of sterilizing operations upon 
either the individual himself or society at large. 

Indeed, sentimental reasons for segregation in training 
schools are in themselves justification of the policy. Ac- 
cording to Prof. Johnstone of the school at Vineland, 
N. J., these are threefold: First, the privilege which 
society should be granted to remove from public gaze the 
idiot and low-grade imbeciles, who are, as a rule, extremely 
disagreeable or even loathsome in appearance; the in- 
herent right of every child, whatever may be his mentality, 
to have such education as he is capable of receiving ; third, 



110 THE NEXT GENERATION 

the right of the normal members of the families of the 
feeble-minded to live their lives unhampered by the worry 
and care which the presence of such an unfortunate con- 
stantly imposes upon them. . „ . The value to the com- 
munity of the unfortunate classes is not solely the keep- 
ing alive of the virtues and charity, but likewise to render 
an actual service in the advancement of learning." — Edi- 
torial, New York Medical Journal. 

Dr. J. Madison Taylor answers the above, a part of 
which follows: 

" Abundant and convincing reasons are on record in 
favor of mercifully and scientifically checking the propa- 
gation of the unfit. Now and then asexualization is op- 
posed. Legislation is too often thwarted. The only 
forceful reasons urged against this eminently humanitarian 
and economic procedure, however, seem based on shallow 
sentimentality; on pleas for individual freedom to do as 
any one may choose or desire ... painful is it to con- 
template a state of society which invites the blackest 
horrors to fall on innocent members, and is willing to 
protect itself only after the blow has fallen. There re- 
main to mention a few degenerate scale, so like unto no 
being made in God's image, that they are a burden to 
themselves, a strain upon their ancestry, a blight upon 
the good green earth, a perpetual horror and reproach 
to all who see them, cumbering the ground. They are 
lower than the beasts, far lower than the mangiest cur, 
the wretchedest abandoned cat. Animated by archaic 
notions of sentimentality, morbid softheartedness, over- 
wrought, vitiated philanthropy and blind to teratological 
truths, there are those who insist that these derelicts shall 



DEFECTIVES — WHO ARE THE SANE? Ill 

be permitted to come freely in contact with those of the 
opposite sex, even encouraged to marry and beget children 
worse than they." 

" If New York State is already providing for 33,000 in- 
sane in public institutions it should be able to provide for 
15,000 feeble-minded. 

Why is it that the State has provided institutions for 
only 5,000 feeble-minded? It is because of the popular 
superstition in the community that the insane are danger- 
ous while the feeble-minded are harmless. We are learn- 
ing at last that the feeble-minded boy and girl are three 
times more of a menace to the community than the senile 
dement and the mild chronic insane in our hospitals. 

In answer to an inquiry, Dr. H. Goddard of Vineland, 
N. J., stated that the feeble-minded girl is vastly more 
dangerous to the community than the feeble-minded boy. 
The reason for this statement is that the heredity of 
feeble-mindedness for the most part comes from the feeble- 
minded girl. Not only is this true but investigation made 
in New Jersey has demonstrated that the feeble-minded 
woman is twice as prolific as the normal woman. This 
arises partly from the fact that the feeble-minded woman 
is unable to protect herself, partly from the fact that she 
is not affected by the moral restraints or the regard for 
consequences which restrain the normal woman." — Hast- 
ings H. Hart, LL.D., Director Department of Child-Help- 
ing Russell Sage Foundation. 

The above studies explain quite conclusively the cause 
of degeneracy, whether it be in form of epilepsy, imbecil- 
ity, idiocy or feeble-mindedness. All agree that children 
of such are still worse than their parents. There is no 



112 THE NEXT GENERATION 

case on record in which the children of parents, both of 
whom were feeble-minded, were not feeble-minded or had 
a worse form of degeneracy. Such births must certainly 
be prevented in the interests of society as well as from an 
economic standpoint. How then shall we prevent the 
multiplication of the unfit? 

The data of the New Jersey State Village for Epilep- 
tics contain records of 26,422 persons in the pedigrees 
studied, 10,233 of whom are classified. Of those classi- 
fied, 28 per cent, are normal, 9 per cent, epileptic, 5 per 
cent, feeble-minded, 2 per cent, insane, 7* per cent, alco- 
holic, 9 per cent, tubercular, 19 per cent, died before two 
years of age, 6 per cent, died between two and four years 
of age. 

In 33 per cent, of the cases studied, there is a history 
of epilepsy in one or both sides of the family. In 53 per 
cent, there is a history of a neurotic taint or feeble-mind- 
edness in one or both sides of the family with no history 
of epilepsy. There are about 400 epileptics in this home 
with an annual expense of over $200,000. 



MIND AND BODY 

ALTHOUGH it is not possible for the developing 
child to be marked by maternal impressions, we 
must recognize the great influence our emotions, 
desires, likes and dislikes have on the physical side of our 
bodies. Mental impressions for augmentation or inhibi- 
tion of our various activities are both eugenic and agenic, 
according as the effect is good or bad. Dr. Crile in his 
well-known article on Anoci-Association says : " What- 
ever the origin of fear may be, its phenomena are ap- 
parently due to a stimulation of all the organs and tissues 
that add to the efficiency of a physical struggle for self- 
preservation through the motor mechanism and an inhibi- 
tion of the function of the organs that do not participate, 
the non-combatants so to speak. We fear not in our 
hearts alone, not in our brains alone, not in our viscera 
alone; fear influences every organ and tissue, each organ 
and tissue is stimulated or inhibited according to its use 
or hindrance in the physical struggle for existence." We 
might well say that whether we eat or drink, whether 
we run or remain seated, whether we are joyful or sad, 
these things influence our bodies, lives and consequently 
our progeny. 

Most physicians agree that there is little or no evidence 
for a belief in maternal marking of the child. Many cases 
are seen where markings occur on the bodies of the chil- 
dren, the locations of which correspond to parts injured 

113 



114 THE NEXT GENERATION 

by the mother. These are simply cases of interesting 
coincidence. The power of the mind over the body is cer- 
tainly great, but such effect is always made manifest 
directly through the nervous system. There is no nerve 
connection between the mother and the child at any time 
during its development. Many persons even assert that 
a child was marked because the father was injured during 
the period of child development. The unreasonableness 
of such a statement is evident to any intelligent person. 
Why not claim that markings on a young chick were due 
to impressions of the mother hen during the incubation of 
the egg. If nature would mark children on account of 
fear or injury on the part of the mother, practically all 
children would be so marked. The scriptural account of 
Jacob increasing his herds by maternal impressions is of 
no more importance from a scientific standpoint than is 
that of Jonah and the whale. 

Forel believes that two-thirds of all persons who are ill 
recover without medicine, and that one-half of the re- 
mainder do not care for a physician, or will die regardless 
of treatment, leaving but one-sixth of those ill who can 
be cured by the physician. The effect of the mind over 
the body has a scientific side ; this phase of the question will 
be very brief, attention being given to the practical side 
of this question. As a result of many experiments, it is 
quite convincing that the mind and the body are one and the 
same thing, and that a muscular contraction and a thought 
are but different manifestations of the one and the same 
entity. 

We are much confused by the terms spirit, breath of 
life, mind and body. It is essential to remember how the 



MIND AND BODY 115 

body is developed from two microscopic germ cells. At 
an early period of the development, life is made manifest 
by the movement of the blood, by contraction of the 
heart, etc. We must leave it to the theologian to tell 
us when the immortal, spirit entered this body and 
whether this spirit is synonymous with " the breath of 
life." As far as the mind is concerned, I am satisfied 
that a careful study of comparative physiology and 
psychology can explain the evolution of what we call 
mind or brain power, to be but the highest developed form 
of matter. Nerve tissue is the last tissue to be developed 
and the first to degenerate. It correlates the various 
parts of the animal organism. It connects the animal 
with the external world, is the seat of our intellect and 
makes us a responsible being. 

Did we dare enter the mysteries of unsatisfactory 
psychology, we might discuss the two or more natures of 
the average man. We might grasp at the explanations 
of these learned " ologists," as to when we were ourself 
in the natural mind and when we presented a " different 
ego " because the subconscious or the subliminal mind was 
then the active force. Such studies may seem fanciful, 
but they present actual workings of these wonderful bodies 
of ours. Hypnotic suggestion can compel a man to as- 
sume an entirely different nature from the one by which 
he is known and it is not unreasonable to believe that 
each of us is daily being affected by suggestions, not in- 
tentionally hypnotic, which can alter our personality. 
Yea, even by auto suggestion, we hypnotize ourselves, 
commit overt acts which later compel us to pause and 
wonder why we did this or that. All our senses, emotions 



116 THE NEXT GENERATION 

and passions are by various stimuli, many of which are 
external to the body. 

From a biological standpoint, however, it makes but 
little difference whether mind and body are the same or 
not; it does concern us whether we can cause illness by 
some manifestations of mental activity or whether we can 
remove disease by concentration of thought. There can 
be no doubt in the mind of any reasonable person that 
many of the ills with which we are afflicted are self-imposed 
by the conditions of our mental state. The effects of 
anger, grief, pain, etc., upon the body are very apparent ; 
yet they are not appreciated. It is quite possible to 
produce disease which will confine the victim in bed for 
years by suggestion. A half dozen persons can suggest 
to Mrs. A. that she looks badly and that she should con- 
sult a physician, with the result that she will actually be- 
come ill and go to bed. I recall a visit to me by one of 
our business men. His entrance into the office was indeed 
pathetic. After a careful examination he was told that 
nothing wrong could be found and the diagnosis was 
" business," " tired " and " worry." He immediately be- 
came a new being and said, " Let us go to the ball game." 
John Kendrick Bangs in one of his books tells of the 
young medical student who had every disease in the book 
except housemaid's knee. The charlatans know this quite 
well and make use of it when submitting a list of symp- 
toms to their prospective victims. 

Dr. Hunter, the great anatomist, stated that the cause 
of the heart disease from which he suffered was due en- 
tirely to a fit of anger. He died in one of these pas- 
sions. There is no pain so severe but what some emotion 



MIND AND BODY 117 

can at least temporarily inhibit this sense. Accidents, so 
severe as crushed limbs, etc., do not cause the mental suf- 
fering and outburst of pain that we see in one who is 
having a large molar tooth extracted, or is having a small 
cut made in his skin. How many persons could suffer an 
accident to happen and know of it a few hours before it 
occurs without the greatest mental anguish? 

I firmly believe that a large amount of the wrath and 
rage of this world is due to certain conditions of our body, 
which act as stimuli to the centers which produce these 
outbursts. It is more important for the young girl to 
learn how to cook and be tidy than it is for her to speak 
French or be an artist in many lines. Alcohol has rightly 
been accused of being the cause of many wife beatings, but 
did you ever stop to inquire as to the cause of those not 
due to alcohol? Irritable temper is given as the prin- 
cipal cause. But why the irritable temper? Is it a 
natural part of man's nature? By no means, a torpid 
liver, poor digestion, overwork, worry and many other 
ailments are the cause of many a crime and much misery. 
It is contended by many that our better or baser emo- 
tions, our most loftiest ideas or sensual passions may be 
stimulated by the rhythmic vibrations of strings and reeds 
in musical instruments. 

" The exaltation of victory makes wounded soldiers 
oblivious of pain, and the depression of defeat increases 
mortality. If a cat is frightened for ten or fifteen min- 
utes by a barking dog, a sample of its blood will make 
strips of certain muscles relax when they are immersed in 
it, though such a portion of blood had no effect on them 
before the emotional disturbance. Frightened rabbits 



118 THE NEXT GENERATION 

show almost complete prostration, and their brain cells, 
in contrast with those of normal animals, take a deeper 
stain from certain chemicals, and their size and shape are 
strikingly altered. Finally, if an individual is placed in 
a circuit with a delicate galvanometer and made to laugh, 
to feel sad, or is suddenly surprised, there will be move- 
ments in the instrument indicating the passage of small 
electric currents. Such interesting scientific facts as 
these, and many others, make it clearly evident that emo- 
tions are something more than mere states of mind." 
F. W. Eastman, in Harper's Magazme. 

" But with an angry wafture of your hand 
Gave sign for me to leave you. So I did; 
Fearing to strengthen that impatience 
Which seemed too much enkindled and withal 
Hoping it but an effect of humor, 
Which sometime hath its hour with every man. 
It will not let you eat, nor talk nor sleep, 
And could it work so much upon your shape 
As it hath prevailed on your condition, 
I should not know you, Brutus." 

In the above lines Portia censures Brutus for his con- 
duct. This is a very positive demonstration of what 
man's mind will do to his every action ; to his digestion as 
well as in forming plots against his enemies. 

No doubt we will agree that the destinies of nations are 
determined by the various emotions. Worlds have been 
conquered and nations crushed by love and hatred. Man 
is not himself when under the powerful influence of these 
great passions, if they be not under control. They de- 



MIND AND BODY 119 

termine riches, poverty, strength, weakness, bravery, fear, 
our homes, and the nature and future of our posterity. 
If then, the negative attributes of our lives act as a 
hindrance to race improvement, direct efforts must be 
directed to such culture as will make man a stable mental 
being. Fear of poverty leads to many crimes ; fear of 
death is a serious handicap to a successful operation; 
fear of failure in examination is making wrecks of many 
school children ; fear of results with its consequent worry 
must be regarded as the great factor influencing much of 
the physical and moral disease seen to-day. 

We must be satisfied that a large percentage of the 
cases of illness will recover without medicine; furthermore, 
physicians recognize that certain ailments are imaginary. 
These statements being true, what shall the patient or the 
member of the family responsible for the care of the 
patient do? Shall we advise them to wait for nature to 
produce a cure, or tell them there is no such thing as 
disease and let them die? The duty of all concerned 
should be clear. Reputable physicians will declare whether 
a person is really ill. You may say that many physicians 
will err in their diagnosis, also after a long period of ill- 
ness many a case will recover without medicine. I grant 
this ; in such cases recovery is due to one of two reasons 
— either the patient has been ill and nature has asserted 
itself and produced a cure, or the patient has not been 
ill, but lacked the will power to throw off the shackles of 
a disordered imagination. 

In some ailments, drugs to a great extent produce 
their effect upon the bodies of those sick, according as the 
physician believes in his treatment and the patient has 



120 THE NEXT GENERATION 

faith in the physician. In an old discussion in one of 
the Oriental tales, we find these interesting truths : " Dis- 
cuss the symptoms of disease and you will tremble fearing 
death ; but turn your attention to the wonders of various 
remedies and you will think of life immortal." In another 
place we find a treatment which was frequently found 
efficacious : " For skin disease, take three of Aristotle's 
Categories, two metaphysical degrees, 14 lines of Homer's 
Iliad, one line from the letters of Abbe St. Cyran. 
Write these on a piece of paper, fold, tie in a ribbon and 
carry around your neck. A cure will result." 

Dr. A. became convinced that the suffering of Mrs. B. 
was entirely imaginary, and although she had been unable 
to get out of bed for several months, he decided upon a 
novel method of treatment. The doctor got a few mice 
and when the patient was not looking he let them loose 
upon the bed and upon the floor. The family was con- 
vinced by the way she jumped out of bed and ran round 
the room that her weakness was curable. Physicians are 
continually using similar but more pleasant methods in 
treating such cases. 

Some persons are so aberrant in their mental condi- 
tions that they can enjoy certain pleasures only by in- 
juring themselves or afflicting injury upon others. How 
many wives expect their husbands to beat them merci- 
fully in order that their devotion may be shown? This 
actually occurs in some countries. How many laugh at 
the idea of taking bread pills? But I venture to say that 
most persons have taken inert substances faithfully and 
then been cured as a result of the faith necessary. The 
physician recognizes that at certain times drugs are harm- 



MIND AND BODY 121 

ful and that the patient would be offended were he told 
that his disease is not real. Many a patient is relieved 
of her pain and goes to sleep as a result of a hypodermic 
injection of sterile water. She believed she was getting 
morphine and knew its value to relieve pain. 

There was much virtue in the discordant noises of the 
" old Indian doctor," who beat upon his kettle drum to 
restore the sick. The history of witches in the early 
colonial times shows the state of mind which can be pro- 
duced by allowing it to be concentrated upon such things. 
Have you ever witnessed the religious exercises of any 
of the fanatical sects? I have seen persons so worked 
up that they would jump over the seats, put out lights 
and cry out in the greatest agony to be rid of the devil 
within them. Medical men class as a form of chorea or 
St. Vitus' dance, the so-called religious sects of the Holy 
Rollers, Jumpers, etc. By that is meant that they are 
actually diseased in body, hence their form of worship, 
which certainly is very harmful in its influence. 

Is it possible for the will power to conquer all forms of 
disease? This question has called forth much discussion. 
So greatly, in fact, are people interested that we have 
large sects whose existence is based upon the power of the 
mind or the influence of prayer to cure disease. As stated 
before, many of the persons cured would have recovered 
and many were not ill. Have we forgotten the thousands 
who were treated by the divine Dowie, now deceased, and 
his sect almost forgotten in a few years ? It can be stated 
emphatically that many persons were cured of disease by 
Dowie. Many are being cured by other religious societies 
uniting faith and prayer. I will go still further, though, 



122 THE NEXT GENERATION 

and say that I do not believe that the prayer cured a 
single one of these persons, only so far as the prayer 
augmented the faith of the persons under treatment. 

" Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
Raze out the written troubles of the brain, 
And with some sweet, oblivious antidote 
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff 
Which weighs upon the heart." — Macbeth. 

" With respect to the manner in which this kind of suf- 
fering comes to be, it may be said that almost every un- 
usual experience has in it one or more elements of causa- 
tion of subsequent mental pain and derangement. Most 
certainly, even such experiences as broken bones may lead 
to it. Likewise, post infections as well as certain en- 
dogenous poisonings are sources not to be neglected ; also, 
too many children, too heavy financial burdens, too pro- 
longed hours of arduous labor, physical or mental; too 
overweening or unrealized ambitions ; or poorly cooked 
food and noxious air; disappointed love or social aspira- 
tion ; financial reverses and other forms of ' ill-luck ' ; 
as well as unsatisfied deeply implanted longings of every 
sort; weak will or over-emotionalism; gluttony and lazi- 
ness ; early impressive childish experiences, especially ter- 
rorizing dreams, frightful shocks, prolonged perversions 
of development; gloomy or inadequate education; unpro- 
pitious parenthood; vicious or disturbing neighborhood 
— all these may contribute in incalculable proportion, yet 
never except by their due share, either to the genesis of a 
mind painfully diseased, worse still, in many instances, to 
most serious interference with cure." — Dr. Smith Baker 
in " Canst Thou not Minister to a Mind Diseased? " 



IMMIGRATION 

THE demand of the eugenist is for healthy children. 
Healthy parents are necessary for healthy chil- 
dren. To a good physical condition we desire 
the addition of good mental development. Alcoholism, 
disease, feeble-mindedness and criminality are the great 
forces working against the ideals for a healthy race. If 
we further consider poverty, illiteracy and the environ- 
ment of homes, at times very unsanitary, we have the 
principal objections continually given against the admis- 
sion of the multitudes who are yearly coming to this coun- 
try and settling chiefly in the large cities, making colonies 
of their own. 

To a lesser extent objections are raised on account of 
the low standard of morals of these immigrants, to their 
living cheaply and sending large sums of money to their 
native land, and to their influence on the political situa- 
tion in these large cities. 

At the present time there is much discussion as to what 
should be the physical and mental tests for their admis- 
sion into the country, as well as to when and by what 
tests these foreigners should be naturalized. On account 
of the large number of illiterates who are given the privi- 
lege of the franchise, Congress is now debating and the 
press is full of news items and editorials as to what should 
be done to correct this supposed evil. Opinions seem to 
be quite evenly divided on the question of making more 

123 



124 THE NEXT GENERATION 

rigid regulations or allowing present conditions to con- 
tinue. 

"In 1812, the Hartford convention claimed: 'The 
stock population of the States is amply sufficient to ren- 
der this Nation in due time sufficiently great and power- 
ful.' In the early fifties, opposition to the alien culmi- 
nated in the Know Nothing movement, when misguided 
fanatics, actuated by an insane jealousy of foreigners, 
not only discriminated against all aliens, but attempted 
actual persecution. 

" It is fortunate for our growth that the immigrant 
of those early days was of a caliber vastly superior to 
that of the immigrant of to-day. Of late there has been 
a rebirth of distrust of the immigrant. That this feeling 
exists and is even stronger than ever is attested by the 
numerous magazine and newspaper articles on immigra- 
tion. Time and again we read protests against the ' horde 
of illiterates,' or the ' scum of Europe,' or the ' pauper 
invasion,' which is ' swarming into our country.' The 
articles are usually the feverish output of some enthusias- 
tic patriot who has not come in close contact with the 
immigrant for any extended length of time, and whose 
remarks are misleading, though eloquent and readable." 
In order that the question of immigration may be clearly 
presented and the better understood, some interesting 
statistics are here given: 

1910 population United States . 91,000,000 

Foreign born 13,500,000 

Foreign parents. 13,000,000 

Foreign and American parents 6,000,000 



IMMIGRATION 125 

Inc. or dec, per cent. 
Foreign born from — 1910 Over 1900 

Northwestern Europe. .6,740,000 Dec. 4 

Southwestern Europe. .5,000,000 Inc. 175 

Italy 1,300,000 Inc. 213 

Russia and Finland 1,700,000 Inc. 177 

Austria-Hungary 1,670,000 Inc. 162 

Roumania 66,000 Inc. 338 

Greece 101,000 Inc. 1,089 

Spain 22,000 Inc. 213 

Males Females 

Foreign born — 1910 7,600,000 5,800,000 

Balkans 19,000 1,700 1,107 to 1 

China 54,000 1,800 3,074 to 1 

Greece 93,000 7,800 1,192 to 1 

Japan 60,000 7,000 870 to 1 

European Turkey 28,500 3,700 770 to 1 

Foreign born from — • 

Austria 72 per cent, in cities of United States. 

China 73 per cent, in cities of United States. 

Hungary 77 per cent, in cities of United States. 

Ireland 84 per cent, in cities of United States. 

Italy . ., 78 per cent, in cities of United States. 

Russia 87 per cent, in cities of United States. 

Roumania 92 per cent, in cities of United States. 

This percentage is greater in Middle Atlantic States. 

Pennsylvania — Population 1910 7,665,111 

Allegheny County — Population 1910 1,018,463 



126 THE NEXT GENERATION 

Pittsburgh — Population 1910 553,905 

Pennsylvania — Foreign born 1910 1,442,000 

Pennsylvania — Foreign born 1900 ,. . 985,000 

Pittsburgh — Foreign born 1910 141,000 

Pittsburgh — Foreign born 1900 115,000 

Pittsburgh — Foreign born 1910: 

Austrian 21,400 

German 29,400 

Irish 19,000 

Russian 26,400 

Italian 14,000 

Roumanian 1,521 

Pittsburgh — Foreign or mixed parents, 1910 191,000 
Pittsburgh — Illiterate, 10 yrs. and over, 1910 26,000 
Pittsburgh — Illiterate males of voting age. . . 14,165 

School children in U. S., 1909^-10 18,000,000 

Native born 15,600,000 

Native parents 11,100,000 

Foreign or mixed parents. ., 4,500,000 

Foreign born 650,000 

Illiterate in U. S., 10 years and over, 1910. . . 5,500,000 

Native white (25 per cent, of total) 1,378,000 

Foreign born (30 per cent, of total) 1,650,000 

Foreign mixed (3 per cent, of total) 155,000 

Negro (40 per cent, of total) 2,227,000 

Percentage of illiterates in population 10 years of age 
and over: 

City County 

Total 5.1 10.1 

Foreign born 12.6 13.2 



IMMIGRATION 127 

Three per cent, of native whites and 13 per cent, of 
foreign born, 10 years of age and over were illiterate. 

Only 6.3 per cent, of farm operators in Pennsylvania 
were foreign born whites. 

" An important fact demonstrated by statistics is that 
in those States which receive a great proportion of aliens 
every year, the percentage of illiteracy is low, while in the 
States where the percentage of foreigners is lowest, as 
Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, the percentage of illit- 
eracy for the State is very high. Illiteracy is seldom a 
matter of choice with the peasant. It is usually a matter 
of bad government. It is also necessary to discriminate 
between the man who is illiterate and the man who is un- 
educated. 

" The majority of the immigrants who are illiterate 
come here to supply the demand for unskilled labor, and 
the mere fact of being able to read or write in their own 
language would not aid them one iota in their work or 
make them one whit more desirable to their employers. 
There is often expressed a fear of the growing numbers 
of the illiterate laborers in this country, because of their 
tendency to socialism or anarchy. As a matter of fact 
the illiterate laborer can only be reached from the public 
platform, and the anarchistic exhorter can be easily sup- 
pressed or deported, but it is not so easy to prevent the 
dissemination of anarchistic pamphlets, which sow the 
seeds of discord and fan the flame of discontent in the 
heart of the laborer who can read. 

" The great majority of male immigrants are not me- 
chanics, but unskilled laborers. The native American does 
not engage in the digging of excavations, carrying the 



128 THE NEXT GENERATION 

hod, or mining. No native American resents that the 
immigrant has turned them out of the great Pennsylvania 
mines. There is quite a large class of immigrants com- 
posed of men of poor physique, with their families, ad- 
mitted every year, because they are skilled in tailoring, 
shoemaking, baking or other trades which do not require 
much physical strength. These people are undesirable 
immigrants. They enter into direct competition with the 
American tradesman or mechanic, accepting lower wages 
and working more hours. 

" There is no doubt that such a mass of ignorant voters 
constitutes a great power for evil. But the blame can 
hardly be charged to the immigrant; rather it is due to 
the unscrupulous ward politicians who thus increase their 
following and to the judge who grants citizenship papers 
without proper investigation of the applicant." 

Mr. C. V. C. Van Dusen says in part : " I find that it 
is and has been for years past the practice of judges of 
State courts to hold evening sessions of the court at the 
behest of the political leaders for the sole purpose of 
naturalizing hundreds of aliens for political purposes with 
a full knowledge on the part of the judges that the aliens 
have been bribed to become citizens and voters by the pay- 
ment of their naturalization fees by the political organi- 
zations. 

" It is unfair to charge to the alien the political corrup- 
tion and cheapening of the rights of citizenship, resulting 
from this condition of fraudulent or careless naturaliza- 
tion. The fault is in our laws, and to an even greater 
extent in the lax administration of them. 

" The power of issuing certificates of naturalization 



IMMIGRATION 129 

should be withdrawn by Congress from the various State 
courts and should be restricted to United States courts." 

There is no longer demand for foreign skilled labor in 
the United States. Americans can fill the requirements of 
the skilled laborers and mechanics, but if capitalists had 
to depend on native Americans for the unskilled labor nec- 
essary for their projects, these projects would never be 
carried to completion, or, if attempted, would be certain 
of financial failure. 

While it must be admitted that the illiteracy test would 
debar many thousands of undesirable immigrants and pros- 
pective dwellers in the tenements, it is doubtful if this 
result would compensate for the loss of 32 per cent, of 
such sterling laborers as the Poles, or 35 per cent, of the 
Slavs in general, in view of the fact that as large, if not 
larger, proportion of the undesirable immigrants could 
be debarred by requiring a high standard of physique, 
without seriously affecting our supply of unskilled labor. 
Much of this chapter is from the studies of Dr. McLaugh- 
lin and others, to whom due credit is herewith given. 

President Roosevelt in his message to the Fifty-eighth 
Congress, December, 1903, said : " We cannot have too 
much immigration of the right kind, and we should have 
none at all of the wrong kind." The great importance 
of immigration to eugenics is easily understood when we 
observe the constitution of our children as studied in our 
schools and the proportion of foreigners in our hospitals, 
penal institutions, and among the unemployed. 

From an ethical standpoint, the foreigner who will not 
be a burden upon society has the same right to come to 
our shores and dwell among us as had our forefathers. 



130 THE NEXT GENERATION 

Further, those coming to-day are compelled to purchase 
any land which they might claim as their own, while the 
early settlers obtained theirs by might and skillful trad- 
ing with the Indians. 

This country is sufficiently large and the natural re- 
sources so unlimited that many more millions could easily 
earn a livelihood, were the population properly distributed. 
Important studies are being made, and laws enacted to 
conserve our forests, the water supply, mineral deposits, 
etc. We are just beginning to observe the great extrava- 
gance that has been manifested in the use of our agricul- 
tural land. The future of America must depend primarily 
on the fruits of the soil. Millions of acres in our Eastern 
and Southern States are not under cultivation. Large 
tracts have been neglected. Regeneration has already 
begun. Intensive farming must be the aim of the agricul- 
turist. Scientific farming must more and more take the 
place of the factory. 

Such being the case, how does immigration affect these 
results being accomplished? We have already seen that 
but a very small percentage of foreigners can and will till 
the soil. Professor Ross, in the November, 1913, Cen- 
tury, says : " Failing to contribute their due quota to 
the production of food, these late-comers have ruptured 
the equilibrium between field and mill and made the high 
cost of living a burning question. Just as the homestead 
policy overstimulated the growth of farms, the new immi- 
gration has overstimulated the growth of factories." Our 
forefathers were a hardy race; many immigrants to-day 
are of poor physique, these going to the large cities, either 
to be parasites or competitors of skilled labor. This is 



IMMIGRATION 131 

what is taking place, and our farmers are not able to ob- 
tain sufficient help much of the time. Our female house 
servants are largely recruited from the immigrant girls. 
Many of our own young men will not perform manual 
labor, preferring to remain in idleness than to do the 
work of a laborer. The result of this is that many of our 
girls grow up ignorant of housework, physically unable 
to become wives and mothers, a very sad condition for 
future generations. Many of the men are unable to sup- 
port such homes and the domestic relations are very un- 
happy and divorce must result. 

Some of our economists believe that the Government 
should determine where the immigrant should settle, in 
order that there will not be so much stagnation in the 
large cities. This country has been rightly called a great 
" melting pot," and it would appear that the great vessel 
was filled with sweet scented things to attract so many 
to it. Our schools, civic organizations, churches, etc., 
must be great refineries. It is not possible to make this 
vessel a separator. We must amalgamate. The immi- 
grant must merge his identity with that of the Nation. 
Our democracy permits the Russian, the Italian, the Ger- 
man, the Briton, the grandson of a black slave, and the 
sons of those blue-blooded Bostonians who came over in 
the Mayflower to sit side by side and discuss the civic and 
political affairs of this country, which grants certain liber- 
ties to all. This is an ideal state of society, and if all 
nationalities in this country can so adapt themselves to 
the best interests of all concerned there should be no 
opposition by the eugenists to the great influx of immi- 
grants annually coming to this country. In a recent bul- 



132 THE NEXT GENERATION 

letin of the National Geographic Society, an organization 
of more than 250,000 members, the director says, " The 
United States is taking more pains to-day to see that a 
Hereford bull or a Southdown ewe, imported for the im- 
provement of our cattle, are sound and free from disease 
than it takes in the admission of an alien man or woman 
who will be the father and mother of American children." 
The bulletin suggests that immigration should be consid- 
ered from the eugenic standpoint. 

The present agitation in Congress as to illiteracy of 
the alien being a sufficient reason for debarring him is 
hardly to the point. Our laws are probably sufficiently 
good, but the regulations as to who should be excluded 
are not enforced, and those offending are not punished for 
the part they play in making the laws noneffective. The 
influence of the steamship companies is too apparent. 
There is too much economy in the provision of inspection 
of those entering our ports. It is impossible for two 
medical officers to inspect 5,000 immigrants in a day, which 
task they frequently have to perform. 

In brief, our restrictions are as follows, the classes of 
aliens named being excluded: 

Class A — All idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded, epilep- 
tics, insane, and persons who have been insane within five 
years previous ; persons who have had two or more attacks 
of insanity at any time previously. 

Class B — Paupers, persons likely to become a public 
charge, and professional beggars. 

Class C — Persons afflicted with tuberculosis or with a 
loathsome or dangerous contagious disease, and persons 
physically and mentally unable to earn a living. 



IMMIGRATION 133 

Class D — Criminals, polygamists, and anarchists. 

Class E — Prostitutes or those who are commercially 
interested in prostitution. 

Class F — Persons called contract laborers. 

Class G — All children under sixteen years of age, un- 
less accompanied by one or both parents, at the discretion 
of the Secretary of Labor ; there are several exceptions. 

An alien should have, generally speaking, enough to 
provide for his reasonable wants and those dependent upon 
him until he can obtain employment. There are now 
twenty to twenty-five thousand aliens debarred annually. 
I believe that most persons who are interested in the wel- 
fare of our future generations will agree that those re- 
strictions are quite sufficient if they are enforced, and if 
proper wage, working hours, restraint of trade, sanitary, 
educational, etc., regulations are made for all persons in 
the United States. Special restrictions are already made 
for Chinese and Japanese. 

Let us look briefly at a few of the problems of the 
immigrants as they affect our social conditions and conse- 
quently as they influence parenthood and the children. 
Many of our immigrants to-day are of the age and sex 
which predispose to crime. We observe that a large per- 
centage come to this country to obtain better wages than 
they could get at home. A very important factor in the 
moral aspect of this male adult problem is the fact that for 
one Chinese woman who has been admitted, there were over 
three thousand Chinamen, and for one woman from Greece 
and the Balkans there were eleven hundred men from these 
countries. The importance of these figures is surely grave 
when the question of prostitution is considered. 



134 THE NEXT GENERATION 

It is very possible that some writers censure too severely 
foreigners as a whole, in that those who are now being 
admitted are under a certain degree of censorship, while 
much of the crime is committed by those who came into 
the country when the regulations were less rigid. Our 
slums are always pointed to as the result of the foreign 
element among us. It is continually stated that our race 
is being multiplied from the classes dwelling in the unsani- 
tary localities. This is true to a great extent, but the 
slums were already established and it is probable that 
the immigrant is a victim of these conditions, not the 
cause of them. Not only in the United States, but in 
other countries sanitary laws are being enforced. In 
London, many thousands of bad dwellings are being torn 
down. We can only expect that the foreigners from the 
various countries will keep much together in our cities. 

In Pittsburgh we have our colonies of Italians, Hun- 
garians, Polish, Syrians, etc. ; such an arrangement is bet- 
ter for them socially and from an economic standpoint. 
It is possible for them to have their own churches by such 
settlements. It takes about three or four years for these 
persons to acquire our language and understand our cus- 
toms sufficiently to live apart from their own people. 

The school problem is a very great one, for the children 
of the foreigner must be educated. Our laws require all 
children between certain ages to attend school. Their 
parents are very anxious for their children to be educated, 
knowing that they will therefore be the better able to 
learn our language. Many of these children teach their 
parents to speak English. It is even said that many mis- 
sion Sunday-schools are well attended for this reason. 



IMMIGRATION 135 

With the exception of the Russian Jews, but few foreign- 
ers come to us to escape religious persecution compared 
with former years. The only objection to these is that 
many of them are revengeful and continually complain of 
their old persecutions. They are often in strife ; many are 
restless, continually in litigation. As in Europe, they 
frequently settle in localities where the population is the 
most dense, where there is more or less political turmoil, 
for there their restless and unrelentless spirit will be less 
offensive. Most of these have a certain inherent family 
pride, they are quite ambitious, filled with a marked de- 
gree of parsimony. They have respect for our laws and 
customs as a rule; they have a nervous make-up, all of 
which make them such as to be classed as our best or worst 
citizens. Summing up, I would say that the foreigner is 
with us. We must do the best possible for him. He must 
be taught to assimilate the best of our customs and abhor 
the worst. Labor conditions must be such that vast num- 
bers are not idle in our great cities. He must not in- 
crease alcoholism and crime among us. He must be taught 
how to live that the percentage of infant mortality will 
not continue to be so great with them. He must not be 
a burden upon our hospitals and charitable organizations. 
He must know that a healthy body is essential for good 
parentage. But in teaching our immigrants these things 
let us not forget that we ourselves are not free from many 
of the sins for which we blame him, and as Mary Antin 
says : " All these things shall be interpreted to mean that 
the love of liberty united all races and classes of men into 
our close brotherhood, and that we Americans, therefore, 
who have the utmost of liberty that has yet been attained, 



136 THE NEXT GENERATION 

owe the alien a brother's love." 

In conclusion I quote from a recent speech by Hon. 
Lathrop Brown, Congressman from New York, on " Immi- 
gration " : " In the light of recent research I am forced 
to the belief that, by reason of the inherited qualities of 
mental soundness or defect, this house in this legislation 
must now decide whether, by adopting the unjust and 
inefficient literacy clause, it will burden our splendid and 
unequaled race with defectives, degenerates, and criminals 
through unnumbered generations, or whether, by rejecting 
the literacy clause and by substituting therefor some wise 
amendments, it will admit the progenitors of normal, sane 
and industrious citizens, whose good qualities through the 
years to come will be transmitted unimpaired to their, 
sturdy American descendants." 

In his message to Congress concerning his veto of the 
immigration bill, January, 1915, President Wilson said in 
part : " It is with unaffected regret that I find myself 
constrained by clear conviction to return this bill (H. R. 
6060, an act to regulate the immigration of aliens to and 
the residence of aliens in the United States) without my 
signature. Its enactment into law would undoubtedly en- 
hance the efficiency and improve the methods of handling 
the important branch of the public service to which the 
measure relates. But candor and a sense of duty with 
regard to the responsibility so clearly imposed upon me 
by the Constitution in matters of legislation leave me no 
choice but to dissent." 

" In two particulars of vital consequence this bill em- 
bodies radical departure from the traditional and long 
established policy of this country, a policy in which our 



IMMIGRATION 137 

people have conceived the very character of their govern- 
ment to be expressed, the very mission and spirit of the 
nation in respect to its relations to the peoples of the 
world outside their borders. It seeks to all but close 
entirely the gates of asylum which have always been open 
to those who could find nowhere else the right and oppor- 
tunity of constitutional agitation for what they conceived 
to be the natural and inalienable rights of men; and it 
includes those to whom the opportunities of elementary 
education have been without regard to their character, 
their purposes, or their natural capacity." 

" Restrictions like these adopted earlier in our history 
as a nation would very materially have altered the course 
and cooled the humane ardors of our politics. The right 
of political asylum has brought to this country many a 
man of noble character and elevated purpose who was 
marked as an outlaw in his own less fortunate land and 
who has not yet become an ornament to our citizenship 
and to our public councils." By a narrow margin the 
House failed to pass the bill over the President's veto. 



CHURCH AND EUGENICS 

IT is not surprising that some of the clergy should not 
only hesitate to accept some of the teachings of eu- 
genics, but should even preach against such doctrines. 
The reason for such opposition to this most noble science 
is due to the fact that many eugenic scientific brethren 
teach only the improvement of the physical nature of man. 
Those opposed say that this eugenic teaching to better 
the physical side of man is dangerous in that the morals 
are forgotten. Eugenics pertains, they say, only to what 
is of the brute nature. They claim that a good man is 
not of any perfect physical type. To this I agree, and 
will even go the enemies of eugenics one better and say 
that an infirm body is often the reason of such a man's 
piety. For him who cannot sin, there is no sin. The 
miser may hide himself from society, that he will not spend 
his savings, and the burglar with a broken leg will not risk 
capture by housebreaking. 

I would ask any who do not believe in eugenics to read 
and study carefully the definition given on frontispage by 
Francis Galton. We believe that a healthy man is gener- 
ally a more rational man than a weakling; that a healthy 
race is better morally than one composed largely of tuber- 
cular, insane, syphilitic and otherwise diseased persons, and 
that when the physical make-up of the people of any coun- 
try shows marked decay such a nation must fall, and in its 
decline it will also show a moral decadence, which immoral- 
ity is largely due to the physical constitution of its people 

138 



CHURCH AND EUGENICS 139 

and the causes which produced such a decline. On the 
other hand I will agree that a strong race, as the Ameri- 
can Indians, never was an ideal people because they lacked 
a religious training. 

Our contention is that man is better as an individual, 
family, race or nation if he is improved physically, to 
which must be added the religious training of faith in a 
superior being and controlled by a rational code of moral 
laws. Only such gives us a vision of the ideal superman. 
Eugenics assists in this development. 

The Scripture from the book of Genesis to the end of 
the New Testament is full of eugenic teachings. Man and 
animals are reproduced, like bearing like. The effect of 
disease on the physical and moral natures is frequently 
pointed out. In the commandment we are told that dis- 
ease is handed down to the third and fourth generations. 
Many laws on health were given to the children of Israel. 
The effect of association and marriage into idolatrous 
nations is emphasized many times. 

It is quite evident that most religious denominations 
have a strong belief in eugenics. It is being taught in 
many pulpits. The writer has discussed the subject in very 
many churches of Pittsburgh and vicinity, and never once 
has he stated that a perfect physical body would save 
any man future punishment, but has taught that health 
is a means to an end. A man will sow wild oats and be 
forgiven by repentance. But prayer and repentance alone 
will not remove the effects of broken physical laws nor 
prevent the wife and children from suffering on account 
of the sin of the husband and father unless the disease is 
cured. The spiritual life awakens the conscience of man 



140 THE NEXT GENERATION 

so that he will endeavor to remove disease from himself as 
well as prevent others from being afflicted — provided he 
knows what he should do in such a case. 

Let us then all labor to improve where we may. Man 
has always been a great composite; at birth he inherits 
from many hundred forefathers, and during life he is a 
great mirror reflecting rays from the multitudes with 
whom he comes in contact. The strong is strengthened 
by helping the weak physically and morally. Sparta has 
left no trace but her history ; she cared only for physical 
strength, and wasted that strength and power which are 
in weakness. The heathen in Korea will accept and have 
faith in the teaching proclaimed by the Methodist, Pres- 
byterian, Catholic or Mohammedan. Why? Man lives 
by faith. He has always strived to grasp the supernatu- 
ral. A healthy mind, as the result of a healthy body, 
assists much in removing myths, superstition, etc. There 
is no dissension between science and religion. The super- 
natural is but natural if understood. Love and nature, 
man and God implies beauty. Beauty presents a sense of 
completeness, of harmony in itself, nothing lacking, nor 
too much. Let us then cultivate the beautiful and destroy 
those things which should not be a part of nature. So- 
ciety demands it; the Church progresses thereby. Wells 
once said that he was afraid to permit any man to be sick, 
poor or miserable, and bring up sick, poor, miserable chil- 
dren, for he could not tell what man's grandchild would 
one day marry his grandchild. 

I give herewith a statement on " Eugenics and Mar- 
riage " by Dean Sumner, and some opinions of the clergy 
and medical men on Dr. Sumner's position as presented in 



CHURCH AND EUGENICS 141 

a symposium by the Medical Times: 

" The time has come when false modesty should be laid 
aside. We should face the grim facts that present them- 
selves to us from every quarter. The American people 
are too conventional about such matters. It is the daily 
duty of the medical profession to assist in preventing 
marriages between the unfit, and the medical journals 
should join hands in proclaiming the necessity of a closer 
study of eugenics. " — Rev. Walter Taylor Sumner, D.D., 
dean of the Episcopal Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul. 

" It is criminal to allow physically and mentally de- 
ficient persons to marry and propagate their kind. Sen- 
timent in favor of the prevention of such mesalliances is 
growing rapidly and a decided impetus has been given the 
movement by Dean Sumner of Chicago, who demands 
health certificates from prospective bridal couples." — 
Medical Times. 

" The attitude of the church people toward the prob- 
lem of eugenics is largely one of indifference through ig- 
norance. There is, however, among clergymen a growing 
recognition of the fact that the philosophy of eternal 
well-being has a very necessary counterpart in the science 
of physical being. When the American people will be 
willing to cease talking flippantly about virtue, toning 
down harsh names to such glib and cant words as * affin- 
ity ' and ' flames,' and will be willing to call adultery by 
its right name, and when they will guard their homes and 
their children with as much vigilance as they guard their 
business investments, then we may be ready for such a 
sweeping law to guard our liberties as the one suggested." 
— Rev . William Hiram Foulkes, D.D., Rutgers Presby- 



142 THE NEXT GENERATION 

terian Churchy New York. 

" There is no doubt that the decision of the Chicago 
dean is a step in the right direction. Clergymen, phy- 
sicians and educators ought to cooperate in using their 
influence to see that proper laws are placed upon the 
statute books whereby the end sought could be attained." 
— Rev. Addison Moore, D.D., Fifth Avenue Baptist 
Church, New York. 

" Nothing is more important, to my mind, in our ques- 
tion of marriage, than to use our powers of social control 
to prevent many people from marrying — those, namely, 
whose marriage, for one reason or another, can be ' noth- 
ing but a tragedy,' and whose parenthood is a social dan- 
ger and disgrace." — Rev. John Haynes Holmes, Church 
of the Messiah, New York. 

" I am in hearty sympathy with any movement which 
will prevent the abnormal and the physically and mentally 
diseased from entering into matrimonial relations. The 
future physical life of the American people demands that 
something shall be done." — Rev. William H. Crawford, 
president of Allegheny College, Meadville, Pa. 

" It will be much easier to settle the question whether 
both parties are free from the venereal taint than to de- 
termine whether they are fully en rapport with each other 
in the deepest things of marital life. It is clearly within 
the province of the State, as a matter of health, to forbid 
the marriage of diseased persons." — Rt. Rev. Samuel 
Fallows, Presiding Bishop of the Reformed Episcopal 
Church, Chicago, III. 

" I sympathize with any effect to improve our race by 
a stricter supervision of marriage in the way of physical 



CHURCH AND EUGENICS 143 

and mental qualifications of the contracting parties. The 
science of eugenics demands that we give more attention 
to the improvement of mankind, by care and selection, as 
we do to bettering the breed of animals." — Rev. Henry M. 
Sanders, D.D., late pastor Madison Avenue Baptist 
Church, New York. 

" There are certain changes needing to be made in our 
social life, changes which are rather generally recognized 
as desirable and even necessary. One such change has to 
do with requiring candidates for marriage to come before 
the officiating clergyman, civil official, equipped with a 
certificate furnished by a reputable physician testifying 
to the physical fitness of the intending parties, and to the 
fact of their sound mentality and their freedom from in- 
curable or contagious disease." — Rev. Charles H. Park- 
hurst, D.D., Madison Square Presbyterian Church, New 
York. 

" Whatever sceptic could inquire for, 
For every why he had a wherefore." 

— Butler: Hudibras. 

The more we appeal to reason, the more reason there is 
why the Church should be a unit in teaching eugenics. A 
Pittsburgh minister preached a sermon one year ago on 
the subject of " Give the Church a Rest." He took for 
his text : " And now also the ax is laid to the root of 
the tree." 

Among other things he said in explaining this text: 
" The Church should not cut off a few obnoxious 
branches." " Cutting off a few limbs adds strength to 
the other limbs." " Checking evil along any certain line 



144 THE NEXT GENERATION 

usually intensifies it along other lines." " Cutting off 
branches makes new roots to appear." " Cut the roots 
and all the branches of the tree die." " To bring about 
personal and social regeneration with the gospel of Christ 
is the mission of the Church." " The hobby-horse of eu- 
genics ought to be tied to the front of the doctor's office." 

I do not believe that any clergyman, be he Jew, Catho- 
lic, or Protestant, would preach that sermon to-day. 
They are quite all of one accord as to the duty in personal 
and social regeneration. Would this preacher prevent his 
boy from telling a lie? If he did he might be worse in 
his other sins. Does the city allow arson and burglary in 
order that there will not be more murder? Is the Church 
afraid to preach against certain sins, fearing that thereby 
others will be worse? The individual must be entirely re- 
generated to be sanctified, but among the righteous there 
is none perfect, no, not one. No, we must not kill the tree 
in a literal sense. Pruning a tree does make it better, 
but man is not all sin in all of his branches. 

Some minister has said that the only remedy against 
sexual sins is self-denial, and for self-denial man must 
have a motive. The motive is supplied by supernatural 
faith alone, faith in God and the hereafter. 

This is true, but we must not forget that the real prac- 
tical translation of a common Scriptural phrase would 
read : " Faith without works makes many dead." Do we 
allow our doors to remain open that thieves may enter and 
'help themselves? We are not yet so charitable. When 
it comes to money, jewelry and other earthly things of 
value, we take every precaution, but when it is only the 
health of our family and the physical welfare of society 



CHURCH AND EUGENICS 145 

we are prone to be apathetic or say that man is made in 
God's image and we must put all in faith. 

Another says that legislation can control only the ex- 
ternal acts and cannot touch the things of conscience. Did 
Moses so instruct the children of Israel? Is it not a mat- 
ter of conscience when man breaks many of the physical 
laws? Do men who have lust of the flesh, men who steal 
and murder, never have a sense of reason? If so, it is be- 
cause their physical bodies have so reverted to the animal 
that they are no longer men. 

" Marriage is a fundamental contract between man and 
woman," says another. Would that it were always so. 
But how about the mother who says her daughter must 
marry the rich young rogue? How about the customs of 
kings and those who control the descent of the crown? 
Are their sons and daughters free to marry for love? 
How about the Church forbidding the sons and daughters 
from marrying into other religious beliefs? I am not 
condemning all these, merely say that they are cases of 
positive eugenic or agenic marriages. The preacher may 
not believe in evolution and the laws of heredity, but when 
he tells his hearers that the wicked man will be a curse to 
his children, he emphasizes the danger of intemperance of 
the father, of sexual sin of the mother their children will 
suffer, he preaches eugenics and denies its value at an- 
other time. 

Montesquieu said in " The Spirit of the Laws," almost 
two hundred years ago : " We ought not to decide by 
divine laws, nor determine by human what should be de- 
termined by divine laws. . . . Human laws appoint for 
some good: those of religion for the best. The influence 



146 THE NEXT GENERATION 

of religion proceeds from its being believed : that of human 
laws from their being feared. . . . The laws of religion 
have a greater extent. . . . The law of religion (speaking 
on marriage) insists upon certain ceremonies, the civil 
laws on the consent of fathers ; in this case they demand 
something more than that of religion, but they demand 
nothing contrary to it." 

Auguste Comte said : " All phenomena, without excep- 
tion, are governed by invariable laws, with which no voli- 
tions, either natural or supernatural, interfere." We 
grant that physical laws are fixed, but while it is true that 
inflammable material when lighted will burn, producing 
certain substances, reason tells us that we can frequently 
prevent the material from being so inflammable, and we 
might prevent the fire entirely. The Mississippi River 
may overflow its banks with the loss of many lives and 
much property, but cannot we build levees? Can we not 
put rods on our buildings to thwart the path of the light- 
ning? Do we not have airships, wireless messages, hyp- 
notism, etc.? In fact where we see that physical laws 
are detrimental, we endeavor to prevent those laws from 
being effective as far as we are capable of so doing. We 
cannot agree with Comte. 

Some great physician of France once said that he had 
dissected many men and that he had never found any- 
thing in nobles different from the rest of us. How mighty 
is the power of such reason! Did he study men alive? 
I am firmly convinced that sanity depends upon a healthy 
body, that reason can only come from normal brain cells, 
that a healthy body is more likely to produce a normal 
mind than a diseased one, and that a faith in right and 



CHURCH AND EUGENICS 147 

God is only of value when coming from a mind capable of 
reason. The prayers and religious experience of those 
under a great emotion are not as the result of reason, 
hence not real or of value. 

It is pleasing to note that a prospectus for a course in 
eugenics given at the Mount Morris Baptist Church, New 
York, says : " If the Church is to assume authority over 
the marriage contract, it has a much greater duty to its 
young people in educating them on the significance of the 
propagation of the race and to the ultimate happiness of 
the home." In conclusion let us urge Church union: a 
closer bond between all religious beliefs in the common 
brotherhood of man. The people of early Christian times 
did not know that the child could be punished when the 
question was asked : " Who sinned that this man was 
born blind? " We know that 30 per cent, of the children 
in the blind asylums are there because of venereal poison 
having been in those eyes. Let us forget our difficulties 
as to the " dividing of the Red Sea," the story of " Jonah 
and the Whale," and many others, and become practical 
eugenists and obey the eleventh commandment, loving one 
another, even to the caring for the sick and preventing 
the disease and misery to the utmost of our ability. 

" Churches are taking a new interest in the questions 
which arise out of unhappy marriage and easy divorce. 
Many persons who get a smattering on eugenics are eager 
for legislation to make marriage conditional in bodily and 
mental health, and to keep in confinement the feeble- 
minded, the alcoholic and the insane, not only till they 
are of age, but till they are incapable of breeding their 
like. Some knowledge of social hygiene and eugenics has 



148 THE NEXT GENERATION 

led many persons to advocate hastily-prepared legislation 
as a panacea for evils which terribly afflict modern com- 
munities, and yet are ancient. Such is the genesis and 
such the immediate outcome of the new and widespread 
interests in sex hygiene. . . . Nothing but the compulsory 
seclusion of all defectives under humane housing, training 
and labor conditions will accomplish the eugenic object of 
the community." — Dr. Charles W. Eliot, in an address 
before the International Congress on School Hygiene, 
August 30, 1913. 



THE CHURCH, SOCIETY, AND THE SOCIAL EVIL 

PROSTITUTION is the abuse of natural and proper 
body functions or processes whether they be sexual 
or otherwise. Any force attracting one sex to an- 
other in such a degree that empires are determined to rise 
or fall by its influence, certainly demands full consider- 
ation. The manifestations of the sex-pull have been ob- 
served since the beginning of time and will be for gener- 
ations to come. The most holy human individuals who 
know or see no sin declare that this question is not within 
the pale of polite consideration. This also applies to 
those " nice " people with a social standing who care not 
to soil their hands and minds with the doings of the " in- 
ferior classes." May the Lord have pity on these Phari- 
sees ! The Scripture is full of the natural man and his 
sexual sins. In Tamar, we find the first sacred account of 
public prostitution; in David, we observe that the sex 
impulse was the same in the royal man as in the humble 
servant. It is in St. John that we find the real consider- 
ation of the adultress when Christ said, " Neither do I 
condemn thee, go and sin no more." . . . " Let him that is 
without sin be first to cast a stone." 

The libertines of Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Greece, and 
Rome furnish history replete with this evil. In modern 
France considerations were given to the dangers of pros- 
titution and the attempts to abolish the brothel were 
entirely due to the fearful destruction of the health and 
life of even the innocent at home by the spread of venereal 

149 



150 THE NEXT GENERATION 

disease on account of the general cohabitation of the men 
of France with these infected women. 

Practically, to-day most of the efforts which are being 
made to eliminate this evil are due to the terrible ravages 
of venereal diseases upon the health and life of the better 
classes, who are awakening to the necessity of vigorous 
treatment against these diseases. Very few organizations 
have come into existence on account of the sin of pro- 
miscuous intercourse, aside from the physical consider- 
ations. It is for this reason that the Church has been 
slow to take an active part in this warfare and the philoso- 
phy of prostitution becomes a more difficult problem 
therefore. 

Mandeville, 250 years ago said, " It is manifest that 
there is a necessity of sacrificing one part of womankind 
to preserve the other." 

Luther waged a merciless war against houses of ill-fame. 
Henry VIII of England suppressed them ; Berlin, in 1607, 
closed them, since which time they have been closed and 
opened many times. In Hindoo literature we find, " Let 
the woman who approaches a stranger be regarded as a 
spirit of hell." 

The public knows but little of the enormous amount of 
the psychopathic state so evident in the prostitute and 
her co-partner in the awful practice of some forms of 
perversion. Studies show that frequent visitations to the 
brothel soon produce some form of perversion or mental 
depravity. 

The animal sexual instinct is a natural attribute which 
provides for the preservation of the race. In man with 
intelligence and reason we frequently observe that knowl- 



CHURCH, SOCIETY, AND SOCIAL EVIL 151 

edge of the result of an infraction of well-known physical 
laws does not prevent the offender from committing acts 
which he certainly knows may prove disastrous to him- 
self and others dependent upon him. 

We cannot gain much by discussing the primal cause 
of prostitution. To solve that problem would be to solve 
original sin and the effect of all of our digressions to-day. 

Comparative physiology implies an understanding of 
comparative normal anatomy, hence in like manner a study 
of comparative social pathology means a knowledge of 
man's nature, the composition and diseases of society, 
which problem has baffled scientific men since the beginning 
of time. Moral acts must be mental acts. Every moral 
act must embody a purpose, be a choice of two or more 
ends, and is judged by the doer before and after. 

Prostitution has always been present with us. The ex- 
planation is quite clear; the animal nature for sexual in- 
tercourse unrestrained by custom and philosophy of the 
various ages and places. Let us not criticise others who 
have lived in a darker age for committing acts repulsive 
to our day, for history shows that many of the ancients 
while practicing idolatry and strange customs were far 
superior to some of our intelligent men. These same 
heathen would shudder at the sight of some of the modern 
sexual sins and horrible deeds practiced by those living 
on vice to-day. 

Laws of state take no recognition of any inequality in 
man's liability and responsibility. There is no variability 
in the results of physical laws broken by the rich or the 
poor, other things being equal. But the divine judge who 
alone can administer to the wants of all persons and 



152 THE NEXT GENERATION 

knows that each individual is a great composite of many 
ancestors and that each individual is constrained by dif- 
ferent influences, will certainly take into account these 
differences, else such a judge does not exist. 

Virtue and vice are only relative terms. In some per- 
sons a state of neutrality exists and there is neither pres- 
ent; this is due to defect. 

The sex attraction is rightly called the master passion. 
When all goes well with this passion and its belongings, 
the whole passion and nature becomes an instrument of 
music and harmony. When reverses are met, the emo- 
tional nature is convulsed and there is no longer music 
but harsh discord. The passion can produce the most 
exquisite pleasure or direful misery. Its powers for gra- 
cious mercies or for wrathful vengeance knows no bounds. 

Man's actions are largely controlled by and he labors 
for, woman, pleasure and money. The fight against sin is 
the struggle against the methods and customs for obtain- 
ing these three desires. The desire for these three may 
be right or wrong. When there is no desire for these 
three upon the part of man there is decadence or defect. 
Religious sentiment, reverence, piety, contrition, sorrow, 
charity and abstinence are frequently the result of experi- 
ences in pursuit of these three things or on account of 
some physical inability to pursue them. 

Each individual is in a large sense a law unto himself, 
in that no two persons are created alike in ability to react 
in the same way to similar stimuli. Lower the power of 
resistance, increase the susceptibility to reactions or in- 
crease the stimulus in the way of temptations and man 
will sin more easily. The effect is more positive if any 



CHURCH, SOCIETY, AND SOCIAL EVIL 153 

one or more of these conditions are made continual in 
action. 

Ask the man why he commits sexual sins and he replies, 
" Eve tempted me." Ask the woman in turn and the an- 
swer is, " The serpent man is responsible." The solution 
is as unsatisfactory as the biological problem of which 
came first, the hen or the egg. 

In all attempts to restrict and eliminate the social evil, 
the honest worker is always under the influence of three 
classes of persons: (1) Those who say that prostitution 
has always been present with us and it will always exist. 
All attempts to eliminate must prove fruitless. (&) The 
only way to solve the problem is to close all houses at 
once. (3) A class between the first two, who acknowledge 
the tremendous task but are willing to assist or encourage 
methods of minimizing this evil. In the second class we 
find many who demand " all or none " should be eliminated. 
Churches have refused to assist for this reason; but I am 
glad to state that very many of the churches are becoming 
very active in the fight against vice, knowing that to save 
a certain number of girls is better than none, and helping 
to eventually reduce the evil to a minimum or eliminate 
public prostitution entirely if possible. 

The Church has learned that religion and efforts to 
improve must be practical. It realizes that there can be 
less discussion of " Moses and the bulrushes," " The 
dividing of the Red Sea," and " The fall of Jericho," and 
more work like that done by Christ and the Apostles who 
went into the midst of sinners and who did not make a 
difference of rank and file. The Church must not be 
afraid to soil its hands; it must know that prevention is 



154 THE NEXT GENERATION 

better than cure. The organization of the Church must 
put aside petty jealousies and labor together for the great 
common good of all. There must be a definite purpose 
in an organization. Citizens are willing to assist and 
donate money to a society which does things, but not for 
organizations which simply elect officers and meet from 
time to time. The Church must realize its power ; it must 
fight vice with the weapons they use, but in a proper way. 
If the Church forces were organized like a political party, 
it could compel the agents of the devil to get out of busi- 
ness in a very short time. 

The Church must improve society by studying the con- 
stitution of society and its individual members and the 
factors which cause public opinion to be expressed as it is 
to-day. Society must not be allowed to sanction evil 
things. Society permits the young man to sow his wild 
oats, but ostracizes the girl who has the stigma of having 
led a life of suspicion. Society permits illegitimate chil- 
dren and forgets the man who sinned, but forbids the 
woman to regain her lost honor. Society permits the 
man to disease wives and children, causing frequent muti- 
lations and removal of woman's sex organs, but forbids 
that laws be enacted to prevent these things. Society 
permits married men to support affinities, mistresses, and 
support houses of prostitution, but forbids efforts to 
ostracize these men. Society permits men to see the 
sights, to get drunk, beat their wives, but forbids woman 
to do such things. Society permits our daughters to 
marry any man who may have money or a position, but 
forbids a man from marrying any but a virtuous woman 
— one who has never sinned. 



CHURCH, SOCIETY, AND SOCIAL EVIL 155 

Man will defend his flag and country to death if neces- 
sary, but he makes little effort to save the daughters from 
a life of shame. The man who insults the flag may be 
shot, but he who despoils the virtue of a girl, often start- 
ing her on a life of shame is allowed to live as an honor- 
able citizen. 

The Titanic disaster produced a gloom to be spread 
over civilized countries for months, but there is every day 
in our own land more women going down to much more 
miserable graves, which could be prevented, of which little 
is said. There are no head lines in the papers of this 
great catastrophe. We fought against the sin of a phys- 
ical black slavery, but we are content to permit a more 
disastrous physical and moral white slavery. Oh, the 
awful tragedy of human lives ! How inconsistent in so- 
ciety. 

The citizens are responsible for the officers who en- 
force the laws. Many citizens permit vice and complain 
of conditions, but do nothing. In a speech before the 
United States Senate, John C. Calhoun once said, " So- 
ciety can no more exist without government in one form 
or another, than man without society. The political then 
is man's natural state ; it is the one for which his Creator 
formed him, into which he is impelled irresistibly and the 
only one in which his race can exist and all of his faculties 
be fully developed." 

Are we awake to the situation? Do we support the 
good candidate? Do we always take an interest in the 
welfare of the community and show that interest in the 
same degree as the friends of vice? In the future, organ- 
izations will be powerful, not for the politician or a party, 



156 THE NEXT GENERATION 

but for the good of society. Be optimistic; times are 
getting better and will still continue to improve. Our 
homes will be as in the good old days when parents knew 
each other and when they were well acquainted with their 
own children. There will be better efforts for sanitation 
and pleasure and the poorer classes and the children will 
not be compelled to seek companionship in dens of vice. 
It will be a disgrace for a young man to do those things 
he has been permitted to do. The drunken man will not 
be able to obtain employment. The lawmaker, the pro- 
fessional and business man cannot have his mistress and 
have a standing in society. Wages of women are being 
increased and beauty of women will not be a curse as it 
has been to many. 

We are our brother's keeper ; society must care for and 
protect the weak. The almighty dollar must not reign 
supreme and the sin of selfishness must be destroyed. 



FEMALE LABOR; EFFECT ON OUR HOMES 

IS woman to-day as able to bring forth healthy chil- 
dren and care for them as in former generations? 
Does the fact that each year more women are gain- 
fully employed fill us with alarm for the future of this 
glorious land of plenty and liberty? The economists and 
sociologists do not agree as to the answer of these ques- 
tions. The eugenist has now entered the arena of discus- 
sion and declares that the problem be considered in the 
light of health of parents and the ability and willingness 
of the female breadwinner to reproduce, giving us off- 
spring, strong and free from disease and mental defects. 
We dare not dispute statistics given in the United 
States Census reports. A few of these are interesting 
and will be useful for comparison with the part played by 
men and women in providing for the home in earlier times. 
In 1880, 16 per cent, of the breadwinners in the United 
States were females. In 1900 it had increased to 20 per 
cent. To-day it is somewhat higher. In 1900, 43 per 
cent, of the female Negro population over sixteen years 
of age were classed as wage earners. In 1900 there were 
almost 5,000,000 female wage earners in the United States. 
Among these were classed the following: 700,055 agricul- 
tural pursuits, 338,144 dressmakers, 328,935 laundresses, 
327,206 teachers and professors, 231,458 textile-mill 
operatives, 146,929 housekeepers and stewardesses, 142,- 
265 saleswomen, 138,724 seamstresses, 108,916 nurses 

157 



158 THE NEXT GENERATION 

and midwives, 106,916 laborers not specified, 85,086 sten- 
ographers and typewriters, 82,936 milliners, 81,000 clerks 
and copyists, 72,896 bookkeepers, 61,571 tailoresses, 
59,010 musicians and teachers. 

In 1909 there were 1,300,000 females over sixteen years 
of age engaged in the manufacturing industries. In these 
industries 32 per cent, of all the employees in Rhode Is- 
land were females over sixteen years, while in Arizona 
they found but 6 per cent, of those employed. These 
figures are accounted for by the reason that in Rhode 
Island a large part of the people are engaged in manu- 
facturing and but few in the Western States. In these 
industries almost 13 per cent, of all employed were under 
sixteen years of age, both sexes, while in the District of 
Columbia only 2 per cent, were under sixteen. The dif- 
ference in the child labor laws of the various States ex- 
plains the situation. 

Women are found in all the 303 occupations reported 
for man, except eight, viz., soldiers, sailors, marines, 
street-car drivers, apprentices to roofers and slaters, fore- 
women of fire departments, helpers to steam boilermakers, 
helpers to brassworkers. Certainly no man would dare to 
say that there are not many women physically able to do 
the work of a soldier or a street-car driver, were she com- 
pelled to do so. There have been some very good female 
soldiers in men's clothing in every war. Who said women 
were the weaker sex? They require less food, less sleep, 
and less clothing, and they do not succumb to cold and 
physical exertion more quickly than man. The wonder 
is that modern young women do not die off by thousands, 
yes, tens of thousands from pneumonia, on account of lit- 



FEMALE LABOR 159 

tie dress, lowering their power of resistance ; but do they ? 
They are slowly getting back to nature. 

In Pittsburgh the census of 1900 gave 22,000 women 
working gainfully. Of this total we find the following: 

7,000 servants. 
1,800 dressmakers. 
1,000 saleswomen. 
1,400 teachers. 
1,000 laundresses. 

800 stenographers. 

650 nurses. 

Many of these figures are more than doubled to-day. 
Of the 22,000, 13,000 live at home and 9,000 board, in- 
cluding those living with their emplo3^ers. In the United 
States about 60 per cent, of the working women are sin- 
gle, 18 per cent, married, and 22 per cent, widowed or 
divorced. 

Having studied these figures, which are increasing rap- 
idly each year, together with the fact that before long 
women will have the right to equal suffrage with men, we 
must decide as well as possible whether female labor is 
making society better or not. 

The position of woman has varied with time and coun- 
try. Her position here to-day is quite different from 
that of 100 years ago. She has attained a certain inde- 
pendence for herself, has become more like man in many 
respects ; but is she held in the same reverence as then ? 
We must remember that the girls of to-day will be the 
mothers of to-morrow. Primitive woman was the execu- 
tive part of the house in many respects. To a large ex- 



160 THE NEXT GENERATION 

tent she was the owner of the household and all looked 
up to her for the fruits of the soil. Noble man could not 
stoop to do the menial work ; he had to hunt and war with 
his neighbors. 

In early times, even in the days of our grandparents, 
the demands of the home were largely for protection from 
the enemy, for food and clothing. To-day a large part 
of our population are still struggling to obtain sufficient 
money to buy this food and clothing. Then but little 
money was necessary to maintain an existence. Barter 
was common. Each planter raised his food, and the wife 
made the clothing. To-day the better classes strive to 
procure a sufficient income for the actual necessities, more 
comfortable homes, more lavish dress, and no end of 
pleasures. 

Almost in direct proportion as women have had to do 
with tribal industries, to that extent were they allowed 
to represent the people in civic counsels. As they had 
nothing to do with things military, in like manner they 
had no voice in the tribal military plans. Should woman 
become the breadwinner in America, in a very short time 
she would control political affairs. 

Roman women successfully (Livy) blocked the streets 
and approaches to the Forum, importuning men to vote 
for the restoration of their rights. In the wars which 
had preceded, women were forbidden to wear jewelry, etc., 
those in power fearing that a display of wealth by the 
rich would stimulate class feeling and decrease patriotism. 
Woman has had to do the most menial forms of work, 
even in civilized countries; enlightened England in the 
early part of the last century allowed women to be har- 



FEMALE LABOR 161 

nessed with mules in underground mines and assist in the 
hauling of coal cars. Woman has from early times in cer- 
tain countries been made a slave; she has been compelled 
to remain from the public view ; if on the street, she was 
heavily veiled, that her sacredness would not be endangered 
by the eyes of wicked man. 

Society sees woman to-day in our own fair land as a 
creature to be adored, to look beautiful, to bring forth 
children, to care for the home, to come at man's beck and 
call, to listen and hear the wisdom of man, to receive the 
required allowance and disburse same with the greatest 
economy, to be the ever-present and ever-ready when 
needed, to do little herself of domestic affairs, to have a 
nursery and governess for the children, to spend much 
time at bargain counters, millinery openings, pink teas, 
bridge parties, sewing societies, musicales and in the study 
of Ibsen and Browning. 

The true mother is pictured as the most perfect work 
of God; one who would give all her time and energy to 
please and make comfortable her children; one who knows 
not the meaning of fatigue and need of sleep ; one who had 
no thought but that of home, sweet home ; one who knows 
nothing but virtue. We have seen her working much with 
little; with few pleasures but those of comforting others. 
Thus we saw our mothers ; may their last days be their 
best days. 

One writer who views with alarm the elimination of men 
from many of the various forms of business writes: 
" When 20 per cent, of women (make the percentage as 
small or as large as you please) become wage-earners 
primarily or solely that they may live more extravagantly, 



162 THE NEXT GENERATION 

dress more beautifully, or indulge in more expensive pleas- 
ures and luxuries, we have an artificial and an unhealthy 
economic condition that cannot endure forever. Woman 
cannot continue to supplant the male with impunity; they 
cannot disturb the economic equilibrium without paying 
the penalty." He further says: 

" It is a fundamental economic truth that the male is 
the economic unit of the social unit, the family. This is 
neither theory nor sentiment, nor sex talk; it is adam- 
antine fact ; it is the basis of our social system ; it is the 
ancient rock upon which the family is builded. Change 
it and you destroy society ; disturb it and civilization must 
perish. He, the husband, the male, is the official head of 
the family, the official bread-winner." 

I am positive that such an essay would neither win a 
prize in a ladies' seminary, in a suffragette society, nor 
with any body of intelligent men. That writer has not 
read his ancient history well, nor does he know that to-day 
in thousands of homes the man has refused to be the bread- 
winner, for that noble creature is kept in alcohol and to- 
bacco by allowances given him by the worker of the 
family. Such a man is allowed to vote for men who make 
our children and women to labor and incidentally he gets 
an extra drink or two on election day. 

On the other side of the question we have the amusing 
statement of one of our university professor sociologists, 
who said : " The wife should rise at 6 :30, prepare break- 
fast in fifteen minutes, get the children off to school, after 
breakfast, go to work and earn at least three-fifths as 
much as her husband, come home and prepare dinner, keep 
the house furnished, never gossip, do her own housework, 



FEMALE LABOR 163 

retire at nine that she may rise at 6:30." It is a pity 
that the professor forgot to add that such a model wife 
should be her husband's valet, carry a wireless station in 
her pocket to keep in touch with all the great cities, and 
for amusement sell a side line of boots and shoes to and 
from work. Whither are we drifting in our higher institu- 
tions? Much learning certainly hath made some men 
mad. Reason has certainly run riot. 

Whether it is a blessing or not that woman must at 
times be the bread-winner, I am not able to answer. 
Surely, could we change conditions many of these women 
would not work as they are now compelled to do. But 
even hard work has its reward and many women are better 
physically and morally by reason of having to work. 
From the standpoint of the eugenist, a large proportion 
of women who work are physically better to become 
mothers and will rear their children with more care than 
many of the idle society women of to-day. It is to be 
deplored that a large number of our women are not able 
to undergo the physical strain of maternity. Still more 
disastrous to our nation is the fact that many women 
refuse to have children, and if they do have one or two, 
these are given over to the nurse maid and governess and 
we have thousands of cases of " the poor little rich girl." 

The number of women who work and the nature of their 
labor varies much with the part of the country studied. 
For example, in the Southern States we find a large per- 
centage of women working in the cotton fields ; these are 
largely Negro women. In the New England States the 
large number of factories manufacturing boots, shoes, 
cotton, woolen and silk goods by machinery make female 



164 THE; NEXT GENERATION 

labor a necessity. In the large cities the manufacture of 
clothing, cigars, etc., determines the large number of 
women in these occupations. There is a high percentage 
of tuberculosis among women working with tobacco. Since 
it is not so strenuous as some other kinds of work, many 
who are already tubercular seek employment in tobacco 
factories. 

According to the nature of the work and the amount 
of wages received, so will the number of women employed 
be great or small. In some factories where the size of 
machines have been increased, it has been necessary to 
supplant women with men, since the improved machines 
permit the employer to pay sufficient wages to men. In 
this connection we hear much of women entering into com- 
petition with men. It is not strictly so ; they do not as a 
rule underbid. Most women work from necessity. Our 
social conditions are such that we demand more seam- 
stresses, servants, silks and satins, etc. Occupations have 
been made for women. 

As society has created these demands for comfort, just 
in the same process of social evolution do we demand pro- 
fessional women and business women; and opportunities 
are made for the artists. Of the 868 women, who are 
classed as having become eminent in the history of the 
world, 337 of them were made so by their literary ability. 
To-day, we find women standing side by side, with equal 
ability in all the professions, law, medicine, and the pul- 
pit ; they control large enterprises ; they stand at the head 
of our public schools and thus they must be recognized as 
a fixed part of the heads of the family, political affairs and 
society in general. 



FEMALE LABOR 165 

Could we emphasize maternity as a part of woman's 
nature and duty, the discussion from the standpoint of 
eugenics might end. But the remark is continually heard : 
" Women of ability, education, and position will not marry, 
and if they do, they have no time for children." This 
phase of the question is worth special consideration. One 
hundred and forty-two or 16.3 per cent, of the world's 
eminent women did not marry. In America 42.6 per cent, 
did not marry. A large per cent, of the women who 
graduate from Wellesley, Vassar, Bryn Mawr and other 
higher institutions of learning for women do not marry. 
Why? They have more important business to attend to, 
some will say. They cannot be satisfied, say others. But 
be the reason what it may, is the country worse off by 
their not marrying? Is there not such a thing as a law 
of compensation in a woman's work for social betterment 
even though she does not marry and have children? 

William Howard Taft in a recent address to girls said: 
" According to your report, 2,700 girls have been grad- 
uated from this school, and I am glad to see that only 
260 got married," said the former President. 

" Now I am not opposed to matrimony, but I am one 
that believes that there are thousands of women who have 
made the world sweeter, purer and better, and who did 
not marry. The trouble is that many women have to 
marry not because they love the man of their choice, but 
because it is a custom. The only way to avoid that con- 
dition is for the girl to become independent by learning a 
useful trade. Then when a man who is a scrub asks her 
to marry she can say : ' I can do better, as I am in- 
dependent.' In this way she can make no mistake." 



166 THE NEXT GENERATION 

We forget that many more men never become benedicts. 
Why not compel these to marry? We know that it is 
easier for the intelligent woman to remain virtuous un- 
married than it is for the man. Further, how many of 
our great men and women have descended from great 
parents? In a former chapter it was shown that men of 
genius seldom left children to perpetuate their great name. 
And again, the ratio of the number of female college 
graduates to the total number of women is so infinites- 
imally small that we can almost dismiss the danger of 
spinsterhood and bachelor women from our mind for a 
few generations at least. These good women will assist 
in compelling better working and living conditions for 
those who will marry and we shall be glad to have them 
with us. It was said of old, " beware when the world sets 
loose a thinking man." The same can now well be said 
of women. There is no doubt but that the majority of 
women will marry. Very many women marry from neces- 
sity ; for fear of being left helpless in the world ; they want 
a home; many wish an easier life; consequently the pro- 
portion of unmarried will not materially increase. It 
appears greater because we know so many ourselves. 
What we want is a study of the women who do bring chil- 
dren into the world. Let us strive for more good, but 
prevent the bad. 

Statistics from insane asylums and life insurance com- 
panies show that a higher percentage of insane come from 
the class of domestics and housewives than from women in 
trades and professions, and that longevity among women 
has increased during the last twenty-five years. Most of 
the women who break down from work do so from causes 



FEMALE LABOR 167 

which are in no way related to sex. Dr. Morton has shown 
that women in shops, factories, etc., only pay one-half as 
much for their lunch as do the men; also that there has 
been less illness in those factories where a substantial lunch 
was provided for the employees. Of one thing we can be 
certain, the working girl is seldom lazy, and will make a 
better mother, other things being equal, than the girl 
who " dolls herself " and spends her time at matinees and 
evening parties. By being usefully employed, I do not 
mean to infer that all girls should become a wage-earner 
in the literal sense. Work as a part of one's nature, from 
necessity or because we are active animals may be made 
manifest in many ways and places. Work for others is a 
great blessing to those who can find the opportunity for 
developing one's self. 

A recent contemporary writer, discussing the " Discon- 
tent of Women," concluded with the statement, " the 
proper study of mankind is woman." To answer the ques- 
tion why women work would require a very exhaustive 
study of economics. A large percentage of the entire 
number emplo} 7 ed work because of the necessity of sup- 
porting, besides themselves, one or more members of the 
families. In Great Britain 12,000,000 are under, or on, 
the poverty line. In the United States the number is not 
so great. Quite a few women in this country work not on 
account of poverty, but as a matter of family pride and 
vanity on the part of the person working. As the social 
conditions of the times have demanded so much of actual 
necessities and much of unnecessary extravagance, it is 
frequently obligatory on the part of all members of a 
family who can make a dollar to do so. There is nothing 



168 THE NEXT GENERATION 

but sympathy for those women who must support several 
children left fatherless and penniless at the same time. 
There is much pity for the mothers and daughters who 
have to labor hard to provide for the home in which the 
father and husband exists as a worthless drunkard; or 
perchance he may be an invalid, in both of which cases the 
mother and daughters are doubly burdened by the extra 
expense necessary to care for these men, who must live. 

As has been so well explained by James J. Hill, the rail- 
road magnate, one of the great dangers of this nation 
is the extravagant way of living. Families of very lim- 
ited means may have a table laden with delicacies fit for 
a millionaire ; homes where the building is dilapidated, chil- 
dren with hardly enough clothes to cover the body in a 
respectable manner, may have a new piano in the front 
room, often placed there in order that the young lady 
might tell her friends of her piano lessons, or the young 
man who sees no other room will think them well to do. 

Granting that some families so desire to show off by 
having a piano and a fairly presentable front room, is not 
such an arrangement often better for the family, especially 
the girls? Will they not become better women? Their 
ideals of home life are thus much higher than their less 
fortunate associates, who have no place to entertain their 
friends, as a lack of which these tend to drift to the streets. 
If there is any injustice in some girls working for pin 
money, there is no doubt a real just compensation in the 
creation of the higher ideals and a desire for the better 
things of life, provided such work is of a healthy nature 
and socially safe and sane. 

Many of our girls and women do not like to be confined 



FEMALE LABOR 169 

at home: they do not like the humdrum of this quiet life, 
and consequently seek some form of employment, respect- 
able and at the same time remunerative. Others will work 
at something until they can attain their chief aim in life — 
marriage. 

The daughters of the farmer usually have work enough 
at home to keep them busy, and there is not the call of 
the excitement of the city to attract them; they do not 
need to worry about dress as do their city cousins, and as 
a result of the different conditions we find a very small 
proportion of women from our country homes gainfully 
employed. 

Much has been written and great fear has been shown 
regarding the displacement of good young men by women. 
I grant that some of the arguments are good. Girls who 
do not need to work have no right to demand a position 
which should be filled by deserving young men. Still, in 
many cases, it is not the young women who are so much to 
blame as the parents and the employers who desire women 
employees. 

There are two factors which are influencing very much 
the necessity of women working, particularly married 
women and widows, viz., compulsory education and child 
labor laws. Since the law forbids many boys working at 
night and under sixteen, at certain occupations, this com- 
pels many a woman to work. 

The worst feature of women working is not the physical 
side by any means, for in many cases the proper kind of 
employment and limited number of hours ensures health 
better for this work. It is the effect upon the home and 
society which is commanding the attention of many of our 



170 THE NEXT GENERATION 

students of sociology. Can a woman be a good mother 
and be absent from home the entire day? Can she leave 
the little children with a girl of ten or twelve years of age? 
Can she leave her children in a day nursery, where they 
are mingling with others whose physical and moral natures 
are probably questionable? Can the young girl be away 
from home all day and much of the evening and develop 
in all respects as she should? When we remember that in 
the last census report that almost 45 per cent, of the 
women employed did not live at home ; when we should 
remember that every child should have at least a certain 
amount of the mother's time for its training, which cannot 
be granted when she works in a factory all day and at 
home till late at night; when we remember that many 
women who work are continually placed in the society of 
unscrupulous men, these, together with many other factors, 
make it plain that this phase of the question is a very 
important one. 

A further factor in the home relations and that of 
society is seen in the wage problem of working women. It 
has been variously estimated that for the same kind of 
work man receives from two to three times as much pay 
as does woman; in some cases this is determined by piece 
work, the men doing much more than the women. The 
amount of the work does not always determine the rate of 
wages, for in many an instance the girl will receive more 
than the young man equally good would gladly work for. 
This is explained by the fact that many employers want 
girls in their employ. Some are employed when not needed 
and the salary is raised for reasons which do not need 
explanation. 



FEMALE LABOR 171 

A woman cannot be as good a mother if absent from her 
children as if she were at home. It is true some women 
who work away from home are better mothers than many 
who are at home and at leisure, but these women would be 
still better could they devote the time to their homes which 
they would like to give. 

In the use of modern machinery where a woman has to 
follow from two to ten needles with her eyes, in many cases 
in shirtwaist factories where the hours are long and the 
surroundings very unsanitary, in work of toymakers, 
workers in various metals, in factories where there is a 
large amount of dust, in stores where the girl has to stand 
on her feet all day — in these and many other places much 
worse conditions exist which certainly shorten the lives of 
these women very much. As our eugenic laws are im- 
proved, and the employer is compelled to learn more of 
the physiological demands of a woman's nature, just so 
soon will the effect of work upon woman's health be less 
dangerous. But let us not forget that the women at home, 
with many small children, frequently suffer more than 
their sisters who are classed as working women. 

Enough has been said to show the effect of female labor 
upon morals. The demand for a sufficient amount of 
money for dress, which exceeds by far that which the girl 
is making; the association of girls and boys in factories, 
the demand for recreation after a hard day's labor which 
cannot be found in the home of one or two rooms, the 
pleasures of the dance hall, theater, cafe, etc., with ac- 
quaintances casually met, all are very powerful in deter- 
mining just what a girl will do. 

Woman can be the most merciful being, but on the other 



172 THE NEXT GENERATION 

hand she can be the most cruel. Her passions have no 
bounds. The story of Octavia, sister of Octavius, and wife 
of Mark Antony, shows the faithful devotion to the base 
Mark, who falls a prey to the wiles of his captor, Cleo- 
patra. I mention these characteristics of woman's nature 
to show that when she once starts on the downward path 
she seldom returns. She recognizes that the world is 
against her, and she cares for naught. Many men reform 
from a wayward life, but few women. 

The economist would naturally desire conditions to be 
such that few women would have to work for their living. 
The indications are that the opposite results would be 
evident, especially in the better occupations. Woman is 
asserting herself; she is educating herself in a manner 
similar to man ; she has business capabilities and soon, un- 
less reform occurs with the men, she will be a very power- 
ful political factor. The time is evidently ripe. She is 
educating herself to the needs of the situation and she has 
a desire to improve society. Some of the female votes 
will be furnished by the class of women who would make 
matters worse than at present, but not the majority. 

We need education, not of colleges, popular novels, or 
the theater, but good plain common sense education con- 
cerning the nature of our body and mind. We must study 
each other mainly from the psychological standpoint. We 
must learn the laws of health. If this is accomplished 
there will be less need for the study of sociology, which 
to-day stands at the head of the sciences which concern 
man. 

It is not fitting to conclude the subject of female labor 
without mentioning the question: What is the matter 



FEMALE LABOR 173 

with our servants? Just so long as the servant is held to 
be beneath the average girl, just so long as she must re- 
main aloof from the family, work from sunrise until after 
sunset, with little time for recreation, just so long will this 
question be with us. The difficulty will increase until in a 
few years, as the demand becomes greater and the native- 
born servants are few, we will have to go to work our- 
selves, and it will become fashionable to bake the bread, 
do the washing, etc. Probably our atavistic character- 
istics will assert themselves and we will have quilting par- 
ties, house-cleaning parties, baking carnivals, as we had 
the log-rolling and husking bees of old. 

Finally, men may censure women for working, for ex- 
travagance and for immorality, but let it be remembered 
that the majority of women would not work were it not 
necessary to maintain a standard of life demanded by man. 
Woman demands dress, because man chooses the well 
dressed woman. As long as man will endeavor to be the 
aggressor in sexual selection just so long will women con- 
tinue to try to please. But should woman reign supreme, 
then and not till then will her chief thoughts be other than 
dress. 

Dr. Simon Baruch sums up a discussion on Feminism as 
follows : 

" Biologically. If ' the male is but an afterthought of 
nature,' as the feminists claim, and he is typified in the 
animal world by the bull that paws, by the rooster that 
crows, and the drone that fusses, and the female is typified 
by the cow, the hen and the bee, which quietly do the 
work, then the male deserves the fate of ' the spider which 
is destroyed by the female.' 



174 THE NEXT GENERATION 

" Economically. If man, as the American leader of the 
feminists holds, has been taken in as a kind of extra 
child, by the woman who rears, cooks and sews to keep him 
alive, then ' the lord of creation * should be relegated to 
a subordinate place, and ' the wife and child should not 
be forced to take his name.' 

" Politically. If feminism is a revolt of women against 
being the ' slaves or servants or dependents of men ' they 
are entitled to emancipation from the yoke, by any means 
in their power, including the franchise. 

" Historically. If the utterances of the feminists are 
regarded as the vaporings of emotional women that ' are 
not worth getting excited over,' then let it be remembered 
that the Southern fire eating politicians similarly ridiculed 
the idea that 4 the Yankee would fight.' Result, their con- 
quest. The early woman's rights shriekers were similarly 
ridiculed by the men. Result, women now vote in ten 
States. 

" I have faith in evolution and the survival of the fittest. 

" Whether the present discontent of women is due to 
biological, educational, political or economic causes is the 
momentous problem before the American people. 

" The proper study of mankind is woman." 



RACE SUICIDE 

PHILOSOPHERS may be able to explain the " ego," 
" a priori " reasoning, and clearly demonstrate that 
that ethereal substance does not exist, but never has 
any man, philosopher or fool, been able to prove satis- 
factorily why any nation should say we are populating 
too rapidly, or there is not too much race-suicide. 

The natural instinct of the animal is for procreation ; 
it does not know that offspring will be the result of the 
sexual relations. Primitive man filled with the animal 
instinct replenished the four corners of the earth. In- 
telligence told civilized man that certain restrictions 
should be thrown about the sex relations and hence mar- 
riage was instituted; another example of man still pos- 
sessing the instinct, seen with animals — that of mating. 
Marriage exists then either, as in most civilized countries, 
as monogamy, or as is practiced among the less intelligent 
nations in the form of polygamy and polyandry. Speak- 
ing of animal instinct in mating let it be said that, at 
times, the lower animals care much better for their off- 
spring than some of our intelligent citizens do for their 
children. 

From the Journal of the American Medical Association 
we learn that Andrew J. Peters, a member of Congress 
from Massachusetts, asked this rather startling question 
at a mass meeting on child labor held in Louisville : " Are 
the children of the United States worth one-seventieth as 

much as the bugs ? " Mr. Peters showed that the Bureau 

175 



176 THE NEXT GENERATION 

of Animal Industry cost $2,051,686. The proposed 
children's bureau would cost $£9,440 and would investigate 
child labor, infant mortality, and other important phases 
of child conservation. It was opposed, but this bureau 
has been established. 

I interpret pragmation to mean, " does it pay " ? or, 
" is it of value " ? This must have been the philosophy of 
many ancient nations, and is even thought of to-day in 
some of our States and the many foreign countries, where 
a tax is laid on those who do not marry and a pension is 
given to those families who have a certain number of chil- 
dren. 

The pragmatic or utilitarian idea was much in vogue 
in Rome; Caesar rewarded those who had children, and 
Augustus placed a severe penalty on all who did not 
marry. Those who had many children were given the 
special favors ; for instance, they were given the best seats 
at the theater. Women who did not have children were 
not allowed to wear jewelry. Those who see disaster in 
our increasing race suicide might suggest that unmarried 
men could not go to the ball games, and married women 
who did not have children could not wear the latest dresses 
and millinery. Very soon the marriage license court and 
the stork would be working overtime. To still further 
increase the population of the Roman Empire men of 
sixty years of age and over were not allowed to marry 
women under forty. These laws were made necessary by 
reason of the country having been depleted of men by 
wars. 

On the other side of the question we find that two cen- 
turies ago the Isle of Formosa did not allow women under 



RACE SUICIDE 177 

thirty-five years of age to have children, all such preg- 
nancies had to be interrupted ; Aristotle advised abortions ; 
in some countries the weaklings were killed, and in China 
the girl babies were thrown into the Ganges. Here we 
see that either they were not sufficiently strong, or re- 
ligious beliefs demanded the sacrifice of the young. To- 
day some men have dared to advise, as was compelled in 
the West Indies, that children of ten and twelve marry 
in order that there be more families upon whom tribute 
would be exacted. 

In Pennsylvania in 1911 there were reported 212,994* 
births (excluding still births) and 111,286 deaths. In 
Pittsburgh in 1912 there were 15,050 births and 8,769 
deaths from all causes. There were 1,818 deaths of in- 
fants under one year of age. In 1912 there were 300,000 
deaths in the United States under one year of age. In 
New York City (Manhattan) in 1912 there were 66,249 
births, with 2,547 deaths in infants aged under one month ; 
a slightly lower rate (3.9 per cent.) than that of the 
previous year. Of the deaths there were 7,675 in in- 
fants under one year. Thus, 34.5 per cent, of the deaths 
in infants under one year occurred in the first four weeks 
of life. Vital statistics in this country and Europe prove 
that from one-fourth to one-half of the deaths in children 
occur within the first month. 

In Germany in 1906 there were 62,261 still births. In 
New York City in 1911 and 1912 there were 6,749 still 
births, 5 per cent, of all the births. 

The following figures of the annual death rate of in- 
fants is very significant: 



178 THE NEXT GENERATION 

Death Rate per 1,000 Births 

Germany, 1906 198 

England and Wales, 1903 125 

United States, 1900 <. ,. , 149 

Census 1900, United States 

106 cities excess of 175 

49 cities between 175 and 200 

38 cities between 200 and 250 

10 cities between 250 and 300 

9 cities excess of 300 

Charleston, S. C 419 

Savannah, Ga 287 

From an eugenic standpoint the economic importance 
of this subject in certain European countries, especially 
Germany and France, has been engaging the attention of 
these governments, and the question of infant mortality is 
being studied with great interest. In all European coun- 
tries a steadily declining birthrate is evident. This de- 
cline in the last twenty-five years in eleven European coun- 
tries has been from an average of 33.7 per thousand of 
population to 30 per thousand, or about 10 per cent, of 
births. The fall is least in Ireland, Norway, and Sweden, 
and greatest in England, Germany, and Italy, Austria 
and Hungary. In the best residential portion, the present 
birth-rate is four per thousand of population; while in 
districts occupied chiefly by Italians and Russian Jews, it 
is from forty to forty-five per thousand. 

We dare not dispute the fact that race suicide is the 
prevailing spirit in most civilized countries. Franklin 
stated that in the Colonial times the families averaged 
eight children. To-day less than two children are found 



RACE SUICIDE 179 

in the native American families to survive and be able to 
reproduce the race. As seen above, the birth-rate in the 
best families is only four per thousand, while among the 
foreign families it may reach forty to forty-five, or nine 
times that of the best American families. 

" We find an analysis that as the standard of education 
in matters of hygiene increases, the number of unsuccess- 
ful pregnancies increases. We have other statistics which 
show that these women who had superior intelligence also 
had better housing conditions, better food, etc. ; in fact 
a better condition as to all the elements that promote 
normal, full term pregnancy. Even considering the pos- 
sible existence of greater frequency of diseases predis- 
posing to miscarriage, we are obliged to reason from such 
figures that these more sophisticated women have, in 
greater proportion, taken measures to avoid the respon- 
sibility of additional maternity." — Dr. George J. Engel- 
jnann, in " Race Decline" 

In New York nearly one-half of the women yearly de- 
livered have only the care of midwives and do not have it 
early enough. Much has been said about the small fam- 
ilies on account of late marriages and education. The 
fact is, late marriage may and does tend to lower the 
morals, but it does not surely diminish the number of chil- 
dren. Most children are born within eight or ten years 
after marriage; some say in from five to seven years. 
While less than two children survive in the families of 
all native Americans, the families of college graduates 
show a survival of 2.1 children in these families of edu- 
cated parents. 

" A set of questions, covering the occupation before 



180 THE NEXT GENERATION 

marriage, the number of children, manner of birth, infant 
feeding, etc., were sent to 105 married graduates or former 
students of a successful normal school of physical educa- 
tion. The investigation covered a period of nearly seven- 
teen years. Of the ninety-one marriages, twenty-five have 
been sterile to date. There are living to-day at the end 
of almost seventeen years, one hundred children. This 
gives a total death rate from all causes of 10.7 per cent. ; 
70 per cent, were breast-fed for periods varying from one 
month to twelve months." — Dr. Sterling. 

We now have before us in this discussion two important 
eugenic factors : race suicide and infant mortality. As to 
the cause of the first, there are several causes given. 
These are, extravagant living of to-day (cost of high 
living) ; high cost of living ; desire to live like the best ; 
ambition to reach certain positions before having children ; 
craze for pleasures, and the unfaithfulness of men and 
women. It is unnecessary to explain these, as they are 
well understood. Probably the most distressing thing con- 
cerning race suicide is the fact that thousands of women 
are accused of preventing conception, while the truth is 
that these unfortunate wives are very desirous of having 
children. The cause of non-fertilitas matrimonii may be 
either in the husband or the wife. Let us be charitable to 
woman. She does the suffering; she gets the blame; and 
when she is being told why women suffer and die, may cry 
out in horror : " Don't talk sex ! " " It is awful ! " " It 
is nauseating ! " 

The causes of infant mortality require a little more 
consideration. The causes of this deplorable condition 
are almost purely eugenic and have to do with the phys- 



RACE SUICIDE 181 

ical side of mankind. The child has a right to be born 
healthy. It is a natural heritage which should be given 
to all, regardless of the position in life of the parents. 
Some one has said that in the ideal future the right of 
parentage will only be given to those who can reasonably 
assure their offspring a healthy birth and proper nurture. 
Healthy parents in a proper environment undoubtedly 
insure healthy children. 

One-third of the deaths in the first year of life are due 
to antenatal causes. The most important of these are 
syphilis, tuberculosis and alcoholism. A failure to 
properly nourish children after birth is the cause of a still 
greater proporton of deaths in childhood. Four times as 
many deaths occur in bottle-fed as in breast-fed infants. 
Nearly every mother should be able and compelled to 
nourish her child. There are certain exceptions in cases 
of disease of the mother. Labor and social conditions 
should permit the future mother to prepare for this im- 
portant period of child raising. 

The heat of the summer affects the milk of the bottle- 
fed more than it does the infant primarily. This milk 
soon laden with bacteria affects the child. The effect of 
the heat is not so marked on breast-fed infants. 

Krieg and Senteman have shown that under the favor- 
able condition of home-comforts and surroundings, mortal- 
ity and morbidity among bottle-fed infants are reduced 
fully 50 per cent. The social standing of the family af- 
fects the mortality of breast-fed infants but little, whereas 
it is of far-reaching influence among bottle-fed infants. 

According to the first report of the Children's Bureau 
of the Department of Labor, just issued, certain condi- 



182 THE NEXT GENERATION 

tions are pointed out as coincident with a high infant 
death rate in Johnstown, Pa., in which city it has just 
completed a study. These investigations form a very 
important eugenic study. It was found that the infant 
death rate varied in various parts of the same city. In 
the poorest sections where sanitary conditions were at 
their worst, the death rate was 271 per thousand, or more 
than five times that of the choice residential section of the 
city. Babies whose fathers earned less than $10 per week, 
died at the rate of 256 per thousand. Those whose fath- 
ers earned $25 or more a week died at the rate of 84 per 
thousand. Artificially-fed babies died at a much more 
rapid rate than breast-fed babies. Where mothers were 
employed a large part of the time in heavy work, babies 
died at a much more rapid rate. 

In one group of nineteen mothers whose babies all died, 
fifteen had been keeping lodgers, an arduous occupation 
among the foreign women. According to Miss Julia 
Lathrop, chief of Children's Bureau, at least 300,000 
babies die annually in the United States. In this report it 
has been shown that city and street environment, housing, 
nationality, mother's age, literacy, married history, the 
feeding of the baby, occupations of the mothers and the 
family earnings are very important eugenic factors. 

Dr. Henry Koplik says : " The children of parents who 
suffer from organic diseases, such as syphilis, tuberculosis, 
heart disease, diabetes or nutritional disorders may be 
either premature or unfitted to live. We can understand 
some weaknesses of the father, such as syphilis, pulmonary 
diseases, general nutritional disorders, etc., but the in- 
fluence on the part of the father which causes the weak- 



RACE SUICIDE 183 

ness of the new-born is, in many phases, not as yet clear. 
Among the working classes and the absolutely poor, lack 
of proper food, rest and habits react against the fetus and 
produce a congenitally weak infant." 

We have seen that the early sentiment of the State 
was, " We want children that can be useful to the State." 
They were demanded or eliminated as the case might be. 
To-day, there are those who believe in the survival of the 
fittest. It is claimed that the unfit do not survive infancy 
and thus the race is the better therefor. These same 
persons lament the millions annually spent on our feeble 
children, the crippled, the idiotic, the pauper, and crim- 
inal classes. Why not allow them to eliminate them- 
selves? There might be some semblance of humanitarian- 
ism in these demands if it were true that they were all 
unfit; but many of them are, strictly speaking, unfor- 
tunates and society must do its best to improve the whole. 
Each part of us is dependent upon the other parts. We 
cannot live for ourselves. We are our brother's keeper. 

" About 10 per cent, of our population is estimated to 
be defective and so a racial menace. If we succeed in 
raising all infants, obviously some unfit stock will be raised 
to reproduce its defective type, thus working injury to 
the race. Theoretically, a certain small amount of dif- 
ferential infant mortality seems socially allowable — 
which it is not — no discriminating procedure would be 
practical, for it is impossible by present means to distin- 
guish absolutely and certainly in early infancy between 
the potentially fit and strong and the grossly unfit and 
weak. We cannot lower our idea." — Dr. H. E. Jordan, 
in " Infant Mortality in the Light of Eugenic Ideals." 



CRIME 

IT is impossible in a short article to give a complete 
discussion of crime, its causes and remedies. It re- 
quires volumes for the psychologist to explain the 
workings of the mind in the behavior of man toward his 
fellow men. An understanding of crime and a cure of its 
many forms would be the attainment of the millennium — 
an earthly heaven. This will not be accomplished at our 
rate of progress for some generations at least. 

Acts criminal in some countries are permissible in 
others. Most people regardless of their geographical 
location, accept and believe the teachings of their own 
parents, church or State, without a satisfactory explana- 
tion as to why they believe as they do. Religions to a 
great extent at least are based upon mysticism, added to 
which we have superstitions taught from birth and which 
become the great determining principles in their religious 
beliefs. 

To-day there is an increasing tendency on the part of 
our best jurists to determine a criminal's responsibility 
by his mental ability to know right and wrong; to know 
whether the concrete thing is wrong, rather than his under- 
standing of sin in general. The criminal is not respon- 
sible when he is insane, even though his insanity has been 
caused by his vices. Further, the unsound mind must have 
been the cause of the crime and overcome reason, conscience 
and judgment. Illness, fear, excitement, jealousy and 

frenzy are not excuses for crime. 

184 



CRIME 185 

Mill says : " Because certain things are so in our 
experience, it does not follow that it is so everywhere and 
always. Moral responsibility does not involve freedom 
of the will. Volition follows moral causes just as physical 
events follow their physical causes. Necessity teaches 
that a superior power overrules our destiny, and that our 
characters are formed for us. not by us." 

Responsibility depends upon the conscious determina- 
tion of the will. As in plant life we see the influence of 
tropisms, viz. : light, heat, electricity, etc., on its de- 
velopment and reproduction, just so in the higher forms 
of life do we find the many influences acting upon the 
various natures of the individual. In the human, reac- 
tions are very great in many so-called physiological func- 
tions, so great at times there is an exhibition of a double 
personality, a Jekyl and Hyde. More marked are the 
changes due to poverty, hunger, passion, infirmity, re- 
moval of sex organs, disease of organs producing internal 
secretions, etc. 

Having briefly mentioned how difficult it is to under- 
stand the nature of man's mind and how peculiar are its 
workings, we can a little more intelligently look into the 
mysteries of crime and the remedies to be applied from 
an eugenic viewpoint. Dr. Frank Lydston says that in 
America there are 843 anti-social acts classed as crimes. 
There are attacks upon public order, the persons of in- 
dividuals, upon government as political crimes and against 
the currency. In order that any of the foregoing should 
constitute a crime, the intent to commit crime must be 
shown. 

Charles E. George, LL.B., in " Causes of Degeneracy," 



186 THE NEXT GENERATION 

says : " Crime is a disease as much as rheumatism. . . . 
There is no difference between the social offender and the 
one guilty of an act made criminal by statute, save in the 
degree. . . . Man is born without a conscience. He must 
acquire a moral sense or will." 

It is conservatively estimated that in the United States 
we are spending annually almost ninety million of dollars 
to prevent crime, prosecute and keep our criminals. And 
the amount is increasing each year. Surely we are able 
to diminish this awful condition, where not only the liber- 
ties and property of man are interfered with, but added 
to these we have untold miseries and countless souls sent 
to perdition. 

Is there a criminal type which can be recognized and 
removed from the rest of society? If all persons now 
having criminal nature were segregated would the next 
generation still show a large number of criminals? Eu- 
genics teaches that a very large part of crime could be 
prevented by not permitting the criminal of the low type 
to procreate his kind, by segregating the mentally defec- 
tive who breed criminals and by improving our social con- 
ditions in such a way that certain criminals will not be 
produced. I agree with E. Ruggles-Brise, the president 
of the British Prison Commission, who says in the New 
World and Crvme: " Examinations of 3,000 of the worst 
convicts in England, including measurements, family his- 
tory and mental and physical characteristics, have failed 
to confirm the existence of a criminal type, both as regard 
to measurements and presence of physical anomalies in 
criminals, these statistics present a startling conformity 
with similar statistics of law-abiding classes. The idea 



CRIME 187 

that criminals are the product of heredity has paralyzed 
efforts at reform." 

This statement is almost contrary to the Italian school, 
of which Lombroso was the great sponsor. With this 
latter school the study of the criminal from the anthropo- 
logical standpoint was almost a perfect science. In de- 
fense of these views it must be agreed to by those who 
have visited the rogues' gallery and who have stood before 
an audience of criminals in a penal institution, that there 
is a marked stigma on most of the faces. But this crime 
cannot be determined by their weight, stature or measure- 
ments of the head. There are many persons in the prisons 
who appear normal and many criminal types at large 
who have never been accused. The facial expression of 
the criminal is largely due to the life that individual has 
led with his many evil associations. The trouble has been 
the penologists have studied only convicted criminals, not 
the criminal class. The advent of the practical psy- 
chologist into the study of abnormal sociology is sure to 
be of much assistance in the solution of crime. 

Dr. Paul E. Bowers, physician in charge of the Indiana 
State Prison, states that of 2,681 consecutive admissions 
into that institution, 2,293 had used alcohol, and 88 per 
cent, of this latter number had used it to excess. Over 
one-half of all had admitted having venereal disease ; 1,879 
had been previously convicted; 242 had been convicted of 
perversion and inversion of the sex instinct; 112 were 
actively insane when admitted; 47 were epileptics, and 
596 were feeble-minded. 

The population, at the time of 1912 report of the Alle- 
gheny County, Pa., Workhouse, was 827. There were 



188 THE NEXT GENERATION 

committed during the year 3,764; of this number 519 
were illiterate. These were classified under 147 different 
occupations; 572 were committed for the second time; 
95 for the sixth time; 17 for the sixteenth time; 4 for 
the twenty-ninth time; 5 for the forty-first time; 7 for 
the fiftieth or more times ; 299 were registered as ab- 
stainers, 512 as intemperate, 2,863 as moderate drinkers. 
The cost to the institution annually was over $300,000. 

A recent report of Western Pennsylvania Penitentiary 
shows the annual cost of taking care of the prisoners to 
be $400,000. The same report of 321 commitments shows 
that 85 had been committed two or more times, 61 the 
second time, 5 the fourth time, and 1 the tenth time. Of 
the prisoners, 58 were classed as abstainers, 51 intemper- 
ate, and 212 moderate drinkers. From observations of 
the trial of commitment and treatment of our prisoners 
and knowing that many of them are returned time and 
again to these penal institutions, it is compulsory that 
more rational methods of study and remedy be applied. 
There must be a competent person connected with every 
penal institution as well as homes for the feeble-minded, 
who can examine the inmates from the standpoint of prac- 
tical psychology. A real psycho-analysist is the most 
important, economic and practical investment any institu- 
tion can make for its defectives to-day. 

The population of the various institutions in Pennsyl- 
vania at the end of the 1914 statistical year was 75,410, 
classified as follows: 

In insane asylums, hospitals, state and county insti- 
tutions 18,602 



CRIME 189 

In homes for children and aged persons 19,103 

In state hospitals for miners 704 

In various private hospitals 9,835 

In institutions for weak minded 3,292 

In various reform schools 1,637 

In institutions for the blind 337 

In institutions for the deaf and dumb 913 

In penal institutions 2,919 

In jails and workhouses 2,030 

In almshouses . . . . 16,101 

There is an annual increase of 500 to 600 in the num- 
ber of insane in Pennsylvania. The annual cost of caring 
for the insane in Pensylvania is $5,000,000. One per 
cent, of the total population of the State is cared for 
during the entire year by public and private charities. 



POVERTY AND CHARITY 

SCRIPTURE says : " The poor ye have with you al- 
ways and whensoever ye will ye may do them good." 
There is no reference to the value of being poor or 
that it is a necessary evil. In the above statement we 
have a condition of poverty and problematical charity. 

Some one has wisely spoken when he said : " It is bet- 
ter to build a fence at the edge of the precipice than a 
hospital below." Eugenics teaches prevention. Charity, 
pity and humanitarianism, are or are not the means neces- 
sary for relief of the poor ; they are the result of a proper 
spirit of love and brotherly interest. In the ideal there 
should be no poverty, hence charity is not idealistic, for 
without poverty there would be no necessity for charity. 
Private charity is not the ideal, but since we are not suf- 
ficiently communistic or socialistic we must assist where 
we may. 

Were all of us sufficiently supplied with the material 
things in life, would the world be better or not? Is it 
possible to deduce that in such a state of society that 
misery, pain and sin would still be present, since history 
past and present shows us that these undesirable condi- 
tions are seen in the rich as well as the poor? Or shall 
it be conceded that inasmuch as individuals are different 
physically and mentally, and that there is no fixed state of 
emotion and ability to care for one's self and those de- 
pendent, that a just compensation exists in man's nature 

190 



POVERTY AND CHARITY 191 

whereby the more fortunate man must care for his weaker 
brother. 

With these introductory remarks, we are confronted 
with the question at issue: Can the poor man raise a 
family which will be a blessing to the country? If not, 
should he and his family be cared for at the expense of 
the taxpayers and private philanthropy? It is estimated 
that each year public and private charities cost this coun- 
try over $200,000,000. Then we must believe that a very 
large number of persons actually in desperate circum- 
stances never make known their condition and never apply 
for assistance. It is said that 10 per cent, of those who 
die in New York City (Manhattan) are given pauper 
burials. Twenty-five per cent, of those living in the large 
cities of the United States are in a state of poverty much 
of the time. 

Hunter states that 31 per cent, of the families of this 
country are classed as renters, and that in New York City 
94 per cent, of the people do not own their own homes. 
In the United States there are between four and five mil- 
lion paupers. In New York City, 70,000 children go to 
school hungry. One per cent, of the population owns 
more than the other 99 per cent. In England it is said 
that there are over 1,000,000 rich persons who do noth- 
ing; many of these own estates of thousands of acres of 
the best land which would support millions of people if 
properly divided and cared for. 

According to a recent report of a statement made in 
Congress by Representative Buchanan, he presented statis- 
tics, in part as follows : Of the 20,258,555 homes in the 
United States, 10,697,895, or more than one-half, are 



192 THE NEXT GENERATION 

rented outright; 2,931,965 are mortgaged, and only 
5,984,284, or 29 per cent., are owned free from mortgage. 
... In fifty cities with a population of 100,000 or more, 
there are 4,424,326 homes ; 74 per cent, of them are rented 
outright. This is to say that 3,196,941 of these homes 
are rented; 574,723, or 12.8 per cent., are mortgaged; 
and only 13 per cent, are owned free of encumbrance. . . . 
There is hardly a State that does not show an increased 
percentage, not only of rented, but mortgaged farms, if 
we compare 1910 with 1890. 

What are the causes of poverty in this country? 
Drink; inability to get work at a living wage; illness; 
high cost of living ; laziness ; crime ; desertion of wives ; 
feeble-mindedness, etc. It is stated that in 1912, the 
drink bill of the United States was $2,336,662,338, or 
more than ten times the amount of our fire losses ; this 
drink cost the lives, directly and indirectly, of more than 
150,000 people. There were produced in 1912, 62,176,- 
694 barrels of fermented liquors, and 135,826,789 gallons 
of distilled liquors. It costs us over $25 for every indi- 
vidual or $150 for a family of six. Drink is then cer- 
tainly an important cause of poverty. 

The United States Brewers' Association in its 1913 
report, quoting Mary E. Garbutt in the Garment Worker, 
answers this statement as follows : " Now what are the 
real facts in the case? Is intemperance the immediate 
cause of poverty or on the other hand, does poverty act 
as a cause in producing intemperance? . . . Two things 
are absolutely essential for the working man to have the 
necessaries of life. First, work to do, and second, large 
enough wages to meet the needs of himself and family. 



POVERTY AND CHARITY 193 

If he is only employed a part of the time and his wages 
are low, poverty must as a matter of fact follow whether 
he drinks or not. In the year 1903, Carrol D. Wright 
gave the percentage of those unemployed during some 
portion of the year as 49.8 per cent. He says drunken- 
ness caused only .26 per cent, of the idleness. . . . Less 
than 3 per cent, of the appalling total of idleness which 
exists in this country can be charged to the working class. 
If the saloons were closed and the people were all ab- 
stainers, the pall of poverty would still hang over the 
home of the working man, because of his enforced idleness 
at times and the poor wages paid for his labor. . . . 
Frances E. Willard said: "Under the searchlight of 
knowledge in these later days it is folly for us longer to 
ignore the mighty power of poverty to induce evil habits 
of every kind. . . . The only way to have sober people 
is for us to strike at the root of evil which causes inebriety. 
Poverty, many hours of labor, the nerve-strain under 
which men toil, the anxiety from the insecurity of their 
jobs; remove all these, and in a short time the demand 
for a stimulant would cease and drunkenness would be 
unknown." 

This argument might be very satisfactory, did we not 
know that the drink habit and drunkenness are seen in the 
rich man as well as in those in poverty. The big club, 
the large hotels, cafes, etc., are patronized by the well- 
to-do class of persons, both men and women. 

Some of these surely fall to the poverty line in time. 
It was formerly stated that the life of shame was followed 
only by those too poor to live decently. Recent investi- 
gations have shown that this is not true. These women 



194 THE NEXT GENERATION 

come from every walk of life; feeble-mindedness is a 
greater cause than poverty. 

The principal cause of poverty is the inability of the 
working man to obtain a living wage all the time. When 
business is good, mills all running, railroads all active, 
most men are employed, but when panic comes and money 
market is bad, hundreds of thousands of families are in 
want; bread lines are formed and charity organizations 
are overtaxed. Our economists and sociologists must 
solve the problem of how to give employment to the great- 
est number of men the greatest amount of time, and how 
the earnings may be divided so that there will be enough 
for all in the occasional idle hour. 

I do not believe that laziness is directly a very great 
cause of poverty, aside from its association with alcohol- 
ism and crime. The lazy man is the product of his sur- 
roundings and can be eliminated if proper means are 
applied. The New York Legislative committee to inves- 
tigate crime, recently stated that 80 per cent, of crimes 
against property and the person, were by individuals who 
have either lost their connection with home life or never 
had home influences. 

Idleness and injuries cause much poverty. Tubercu- 
losis, insanity, feeble-mindedness and syphilis are the dis- 
eases responsible for most of this inability to work. 
" Hunter states that in the seventeen years ending 1902, 
there were 103,320 persons killed and 587,028 injured by 
our railroads. The Interstate Commerce Commission 
gives 73,000 injured or killed by the railways in 1902." 
— Ralph Waldo Trme. 

Many students of this question say that there are too 



POVERTY AND CHARITY 195 

many laboring persons coming to this country, and that 
there is not work enough for all. In the chapter on 
Immigration, that phase of the subject was discussed, the 
conclusion being that there were not too many of the 
right kind, but there were too many of the inferior class, 
those who would not amalgamate with the social condi- 
tions and especially too many who would not go into agri- 
cultural pursuits, preferring to remain idle if they cannot 
get a certain kind of work to do. 

Where the great industries exist, viz., railroad centers, 
manufacturing and mining, there most frequent and most 
serious are the disturbing labor conditions. In the agri- 
cultural districts want is not so evident. Nature has 
given man and animals certain instincts for preservation 
from want. The bees and the squirrel teach man how to 
lay food aside. Primitive man knew how to prepare for 
the long dreary days when he could not plant and hunt. 
Civilized man knows still better how to keep meat, butter, 
eggs and poultry for months and years. But is it the 
business man who prepares in the day of plenty for the 
poor man in time of want ? The period of Israel's famine 
and Egypt's plenty, forecast by Joseph's interpretation 
of Pharaoh's dreams is of more than historic interest. 

Even to-day there is enough good land uncultivated in 
this country with its many natural resources that if prop- 
erly tilled all could be fed and that quite well, provided 
the population was properly distributed and the people 
inclined to do agricultural work. All over the United 
States farm help is scarce, yet charity must care for 
thousands. The ingenuity of man is rapidly overcoming 
the great disasters to our crops by drouth, etc. The 



196 THE NEXT GENERATION 

great streams are being utilized, the desert is being re- 
claimed to produce food, and our wizard scientists are 
increasing the size of our fruits, grains and vegetables 
and even the thorny cactus can be made an edible plant. 

Is poverty then destroying our race, and do our chari- 
table institutions create a spirit of fearlessness on the 
part of those who know that they may come to want? 
We furnish free food and clothing, we help to pay the 
rent, we provide summer outings for the mothers and 
children, we establish depots in our large cities giving 
certified milk and ice for the babies (many of whose moth- 
ers prefer this milk for family use), we send physicians 
to their sick, care for and operate on those needy in our 
hospitals, and in fact we are endeavoring to relieve every 
want of those who are poor, even to giving the dead a 
proper burial. 

Humanity demands such mercy. " Though I speak 
with the tongues of man and angels and have not charity, 
I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." 
Enlightened America shows much disregard for preven- 
tion, but a great willingness for almshouses, hospitals, 
insane asylums and penal institutions. Surely we must 
build more fences about our precipices. We are rapidly 
learning that it is more economic and more humane to pre- 
vent disease than to alleviate suffering and care for the 
dying. In the future many of our infectious diseases will 
be eliminated. May we say the same for alcoholism, 
crime and poverty. The majority of the public do not 
yet appreciate these efforts for prevention. Many only 
learn by sad experience. The story is still true of how 
many a " prodigal " appreciates the " husks " in his hun- 



POVERTY AND CHARITY 197 

ger, when he had cast aside plenty and a seeming restraint. 
It might be well said that dire want is often the mother 
of appreciation. 

As stated in the beginning, charity is not idealistic. 
We desire a day when it will not be necessary, when want 
will be no more. Some fear that should such a happy 
state of affairs come to pass that many of our better 
attributes would not be developed; no poor to feed, none 
of their sick to care for, a day when charity organizations 
would be no more. But as that ideal is in the dark, dim, 
distant future, we must continue to develop the better 
spirit and care for those who may be in need. While 
doing this, let us apply eugenic principles and by proper 
methods of prevention we can markedly diminish those in 
want, thereby making a better and happier state of society. 

Many of our philosophers have taught that virtue and 
ultimate happiness are only possible by separating one's 
self from worldly pleasures and selfish desires. Many 
have sought a state of poverty to attain this virtue. Did 
we accept this line of reasoning, many changes must need 
occur. But since even philosophers cannot agree, so poor 
man knows not what is best for himself at all times. We 
must agree that a condition of want in many a family has 
produced great men, and the name of a rich man never 
lives in history on account of his money. Each year 
competition becomes greater, there are less chances for 
the poor boy, education, practical of course, is necessary 
and the battle of life becomes more strenuous. 

Even in the day of great achievements, of speed, luxury 
and pleasure, it must be conceded by all thinking persons 
that the greatest heritage any boy and girl can possess 



198 THE NEXT GENERATION 

is a good Christian home training. This is possible with 
the poor even where there is great want. These good 
homes are the ones we must provide and protect. It may 
even be necessary to say that " The curfew must ring each 
night," not only for the boys and the girls, but for the 
fathers and mothers as well. 

In conclusion, we must all grant that private charity 
organizations must assume much of the responsibility of 
caring for those in want, until our municipal governments 
realize the importance of this question. We shall arrive 
at no solution of dispensing charity until more equal 
methods of taxation are in force. The common man al- 
ways pays more than his share. Individual acts of kind- 
ness and relief will always be the one great method of 
developing the spirit of brotherly love. Giving to street 
beggars, especially to children, is a very dangerous form 
of charity ; it develops criminals. The true philanthropist 
is not the man who gives vast sums to relieve conditions 
for which he is largely responsible. " The man who has 
no sense of service to his fellow-man, whose idea is prima- 
rily gain for himself, whether honorable or dishonorable, 
is the supreme fool in life by virtue of his ignorance lead- 
ing him into the violation of a law that condemns him to 
a pinched, a stunted, seemless, joyless life." — Ralph 
Waldo Trme. 



WAR AND FUTURE GENERATIONS 

DR. DAVID STARR JORDAN, in discussing the 
decline of Rome, says : " Does history repeat 
itself? It always does if it is true history. If it 
does not we are not dealing with history, but with a mere 
succession of incidents. Like causes produce like effects, 
just as often as man may choose to test them. When- 
ever man uses a nation for the test, poor seed yields a poor 
fruitage. Where the weakling and the coward survive 
in human history, there ' the human harvest is bad.' . . . 
And it can never be otherwise." 

Dr. Jordan believes that the fall of Rome was due to 
breeding from inferior stock as the good stock was thinned. 
And just as Rome fell, so have other nations of the past. 
This is called the reversal of the laws of eugenics. Gib- 
bon says: "After a diligent inquiry, I can discern four 
principal causes of the ruin of Rome, which continued to 
operate in a period of more than a thousand years. (1) 
The injuries of time and nature. (2) The hostile attacks 
of the Barbarians and Christians. (3) The use and the 
abuse of the materials. (4) The domestic quarrels of the 
Romans." 

Writing of the causes which destroyed Rome, Baron 
de Montesquieu says : "In a despotic state, indeed, 
which is immoderately exerted, a real division is per- 
petually kindled. ... It must be acknowledged that the 

Roman laws were too weak to govern the republic. . . * 

199 



200 THE NEXT GENERATION 

She lost her liberty because she completed her work too 
soon." 

Dr. Jordan, in the " Eugenics of War," says : " Eng- 
land has made this a British world. Her young men have 
gone to all regions where free men can live. She has 
carried the British peace to all barbarous lands, and she 
has made it possible for civilized men to trade and pray 
with savages. . . . What has all this cost? It could not 
be done unless it was paid for, and we must not wonder if 
such strenuous effort, such sacrifice of life and force, has 
left her with something like exhaustion." 

With this consideration of the fall of nations, can we 
seriously contemplate that the United States may ever be 
drawn into such a war as Dr. Jordan would believe must 
surely result in the disintegration of this powerful na- 
tion? Such a result depending on the loss of good stock, 
the inferior men remaining at home to replenish the race. 

Is war ordained of God to promote justice, to increase 
all that is noble in man, making for better succeeding gen- 
erations, or does the reverse naturally follow by the slaugh- 
ter of thousands of hardy men? Is it true that this 
country would have prospered more surely and be more 
stable had our wars not have occurred? 

History records little else than the struggle of nations, 
the rise of this and the fall of that empire. The few 
other pages of history deal with the character, habits and 
tastes of these nations during their years of peace when 
they were preparing for the next conflict. Man has in- 
herited the natural instinct of animals for self-preserva- 
tion. To accomplish this, prey is made by the animal 
upon its weaker adversaries. It is the natural survival 



WAR AND FUTURE GENERATIONS 201 

of the fittest. 

From the earliest history of man war has been waged, 
chiefly for three reasons: (1) Conquest, for personal or 
national aggrandizement; (£) for the sake of religion; 
(3) for the love of woman. To-day we may add three 
others: (a) Protection of investments in a foreign coun- 
try; (b) protection of a persecuted people as in the case 
of Cuba; and (c) for commercial supremacy. 

Study our most justifiable war of the Revolution and 
with this the opinion of two Indian chiefs. William Pitt, 
speaking in the House of Commons, June, 1781, said: 
" Gentlemen have passed the highest eulogiums on the 
American War. Its justice has been defended in the most 
fervent manner. A noble lord in the heat of his zeal, has 
called it a holy war. For my part, although the honor- 
able gentleman who made this motion, and some other 
gentlemen, have been, more than once, in the course of the 
debate, severely reprehended for calling it a wicked and 
accursed war, I am persuaded, and would affirm, that it 
was a most accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural 
and diabolical war ! " 

Horace Walpole, a member of the British Parliament, 
said in 1775 : " However, we are determined to know the 
worst, and are sending all the men and ammunition we 
can muster. The Congress, not asleep neither, have ap- 
pointed a generalissimo, Washington, allowed a very able 
officer, who distinguished himself in the last war. Well, 
we had better gone on robbing the Indies ! It was a more 
lucrative trade." Sir Horace had a very excellent premo- 
nition of coming disasters to the British army. We all 
agree that the colonies were engaged in a righteous war. 



202 THE NEXT GENERATION 

Many of our most able men were killed ; still the country 
prospered in a short time as never before or since. Most 
eugenists will say, and that rightly, too, that the pros- 
perity was possible and natural, as vast multitudes of 
sturdy immigrants flocked to this land of liberty and 
plenty. 

Nevertheless, we had our internal dissensions with the 
first owners of the soil. By treaty, purchase (?) and 
power, we have finally subdued the aborigines. As to the 
land of religious liberty the opinion of Red Jacket on 
" The Religion of the White Man and the Red " is quite 
interesting. " Brother, you say that there is but one 
way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is 
but one religion, why do your white people differ so much 
about it? . . . Brother, we do not wish to destroy your 
religion or take it from you. We only want to enjoy our 
own." The great chieftain, Black Hawk, said after his 
defeat : " That was the last sun that shone on Black 
Hawk. His heart is dead, and no longer beats quick in 
his bosom. He is now a prisoner of the white men; they 
will do with him as they wish. But he can stand torture, 
and is not afraid of death. He is no coward. Black 
Hawk is an Indian. He has done nothing for which an 
Indian ought to be ashamed. He has fought for his coun- 
trymen, against white men, who came, year after year, to 
cheat them and take away their lands." 

Does any American to-day dare say that Black Hawk 
was not filled with the same patriotic spirit the colonists 
showed in the war against England? Was it not a more 
righteous spirit than many of us display in our efforts 
to conquer foreign countries simply to protect invested 



WAR AND FUTURE GENERATIONS 203 

interests of our great capitalists? There is over one bil- 
lion of United States capital in Mexico ; Mexico has about 
two-thirds as much, and England one-third as much in- 
vested in these enterprises. To protect these the lives of 
thousands of the common able-bodied soldiers may be lost, 
while the interested ones remain at home enjoying them- 
selves and proclaiming that we should always be patriotic. 
The words of William Penn and Horace Walpole might 
well be studied to-day. 

Is war of value to a nation? Do we develop the spirit 
of manhood and are the shades of the fallen brave a 
stimulus to each succeeding generation? It is not true 
that it is only the most sturdy who can shoulder the gun 
and withstand the fatigue of the long march. In any 
great war like our Civil War, regiments were filled from 
every walk of life, the laborer and the clerk, the artisan 
and the professional man marched and fell, side by side. 
It was not a war of sinew alone, it was right and patriot- 
ism, seen in both the Northern and Southern armies. Few 
men to-day would be willing to erase that awful struggle 
from the pages of history, but a much less number would 
desire another such conflict. 

The great nations of the world are spending from 25 
per cent, to more than 50 per cent, of their national ex- 
penditures on their armies and navies; to prepare for 
war in times of peace. To preserve peace, many say. 

Dr. Jordan quotes Benjamin Franklin as saying that 
the system of standing armies and war in vogue in Eu- 
rope in his time could not endure, because the result of it 
would be that the nations would breed inferior stock, that 
the strong men would be destroyed, or kept from mar- 



204 THE NEXT GENERATION 

riage, and those at home — those that war could not use 
— would be the parents of the next generation. And so, 
he says, that system cannot stand. While there are con- 
tinued rumors of great wars about to break out in Europe, 
it must be granted that the countries of Europe are no 
nearer decadence on account of war than when Franklin 
made the above statement. If there has been any retro- 
grade movement in the last few decades it is rather on 
account of race suicide, labor conditions and religious 
feelings than that of war. 

Much as we deprecate war for any reason, we must 
grant that it does develop courage and a spirit of national 
patriotism. The percentage of the entire number killed 
in battle is very small compared to the deaths to-day from 
disease, alcoholism, and the number of defectives which 
are being thrust upon us. More persons die annually in 
the United States than were killed in the Civil War. 

The report of the Coroner of Allegheny County, Penn- 
sylvania for 1914, shows that there were 2,914 deaths in- 
vestigated. Of these we find that there were the following : 

Burns and scalds . . . ., 132 

Mines and mills 156 

Murder 56 

Drowning 91 

Railroads , 178 

Automobile 50 

Falls 153 

Street railways 51 

Accidental poisoning and shooting 43 

Asphyxiated 24 



WAR AND FUTURE GENERATIONS 205 

The sons of great men are rarely great and all great 
men have not descended from the sturdy class. War can- 
not develop this noble spirit of patriotism to be emulated 
by our sons and grandsons unless it be a just cause. Jus- 
tice is often hard to determine since Scripture is full of 
wars of conquest. England, France, Scotland, and Spain 
have killed their hundreds of thousands simply because of 
religious feelings. In 1806, John Randolph, in the House 
of Representatives, spoke against another war with Eng- 
land. He said : " But the gentleman has told you we 
ought to go to war, if for nothing else, for the fur trade. 
Now, sir, the people on whose support he seems to calcu- 
late, follow, let me tell him, a better business ; and let me 
add that while men are happy at home reaping their own 
fields, the fruits of their labor and industry, there is little 
danger of their being induced to go sixteen or seventeen 
hundred miles in pursuit of beavers, raccoons, or opossums 
— much less of going to war for the privilege. They are 
better employed where they are." We had the war a few 
years later and men do go far away to obtain these furs 
for milady's vanity. 

Speaking of religious wars, the words of Meagher on 
"Abhorring the Sword in Dublin," 1846, are strong: 
" Then, my lord, I do not condemn the use of arms as 
immoral, nor do I conceive it profane to say that the 
King of Heaven — the Lord of Hosts ! the God of Battles ! 
bestows His benedictions upon those who unsheath the 
sword in the hour of a nation's peril." He was not al- 
lowed to finish that speech and was compelled to flee to 
America. 

We cannot but admire Patrick Henry for his words in 



206 THE NEXT GENERATION 

1775 : " There is no retreat but in submission and 
slavery ! Our chains are forged ! Their clanking may be 
heard on the plains of Boston ! The war is inevitable and 
let it come ! I repeat it, sir, let it come ! " Still to-day 
we see no cause for such a patriotic speech. Blessed are 
the peacemakers. The murderer may kill in self-defense 
and our statesmen claim that war is for the purpose of 
the preservation of our nation. Every man should be a 
fighter ; a fighter against oppression of every kind. Every 
true American has courage, courage to enter the thickest 
of the battle, and will give his life without a word. But 
how many have the real courage of life to protect suffer- 
ing man and woman? The hero rescues a drowning per- 
son and receives a " hero medal." A dog will rescue his 
master oft-times. How many have the courage to do the 
real things of life? 

I cannot conclude better than to quote from an article 
by the late Prof. William James on " The Moral Equiva- 
lent of War," Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 77 : " The 
military patriotic and romantic minded everywhere, and 
especially the professional military class refuse to admit 
for a moment that war may be a transitory phenomenon 
in social evolution. The notion of a sheep's paradise like 
that revolts, they say, our higher imagination. Where 
then would be the steeps of life ? If war had ever stopped, 
we should have to reinvent it, on this view, to redeem life 
from flat degeneration. . . . Militarism is the great pre- 
server of our ideals of hardihood, and human life with 
no use for hardihood would be contemptible. . . . War is 
in short, a permanent human obligation. . . . No victory, 
says S. R. Steinmetz, is possible save in the resultant of 



WAR AND FUTURE GENERATIONS 207 

virtue, no defeat for which some vice or weakness is not 
responsible." War may have been an agenic factor in 
the time of Rome, but I cannot believe it is in this coun- 
try to-day. War is becoming more impossible each year 
and the patriotic spirit must be developed in more righteous 
ways. Pleasure and pain may be relative experiences, but 
we must place a new interpretation on the saying : " We 
can only get to heaven through hell." 

The above article was written and published in March, 
1914, since which time we are witnessing a war the like 
of which the world has never seen. From the standpoint 
of the eugenist, we wonder and try to determine what 
will be the effect of this great struggle on future gener- 
ations. Will the killing off of the many thousands of 
strong men who could have been the fathers of healthy 
children be evenly or more than balanced by the better- 
ment morally and socially of those who survive? 

Will this tendency to a more religious feeling and less 
socialistic differences be so manifest that it will be said 
a century hence that this war was a good thing? We 
can only argue and imagine what must occur for eugenic 
reasons. Without wars to depopulate the world, some 
assert that many nations would multiply too rapidly. 
Peace increases race suicide. 

It is possible that the desire for children is more mani- 
fest in a nation following a great war, notwithstanding 
the financial losses suffered by the survivors. War in- 
creases marital ties, there is a closer bond between husband 
and wife, more fidelity on the part of each, due to the 
long suffering of the soldier and the struggle for existence 



208 THE NEXT GENERATION 

of the wife at home. The unmarried soldier longs for a 
home and hastens to the altar as soon as possible. 

War creates a spirit of charity in many who would 
otherwise not care for those in want. War diminishes the 
amount of sensual indulgences ; pleasures give way to 
diligence. Maclay, in The North American Review, 
September, 1914, details at length on the " Horrors of 
Peace." He says, " When there is no strife we are contin- 
ually in pain and sorrow, due to diseases, accidents, race 
suicide, divorce, etc., all of which (although constantly de- 
creasing in proportion to the population) are as distress- 
ing as war." Race suicide and divorce are markedly on 
the increase. I mentioned these calamities, destroyers of 
the race even in peace, in the above article. The effect of 
war and peace must be judged by the moral effect upon 
the nations concerned. Even from an eugenic standpoint 
a righteous weakling is yet superior to an immoral giant 
and will in the long run produce better children. 

Just so long as our false idea of national patriotism 
compels two neighbors who are the best of friends, but who 
happen to live on opposite sides of a boundary line, to 
take up arms against each other, because they must be 
true to their country, must we continue to argue, as to 
the horrors of war and the value of peace. In the same 
line of argument must we consider those who would kill a 
friend and brother because their birth was solemnized in 
one church while that of his brother was written in a 
sanctuary which had a different belief in some detail of a 
God whom they each believed listened to their supplica- 
tions and would make them victors in the end. Victories 
they may be, but not such as they believed. 



TEACHING SEX HYGIENE 

SOME one has facetiously said that it is now, " Sex 
o'clock." Before beginning a serious consideration 
of this maligned subject, it is advisable that the hon- 
est student read carefully the sixteenth chapter of Leviti- 
cus. After a careful study of the Jewish laws, we are in 
a better position to ask the question : " Are we as thor- 
ough in teaching sex matters and administering laws deal- 
ing with social ills as were our ancestors many centuries 
ago ? " 

We all do agree that every intelligent man and woman 
desires a state of sexual purity in his own household; but 
the idea is common to many that sex sin is necessary and 
should exist. We can quite agree concerning animal na- 
ture unrestrained, but cannot consent to the necessity as 
a part of the natural physiological functions of the human 
body. 

Man is an animal normally endowed with more or less 
of the " sex pull." A proper restraint of this nature de- 
pends upon a healthy body and a sufficient degree of intel- 
ligence. The various structures of the human organism 
are capable of reaction to many stimuli, internal and ex- 
ternal to that organism. An abnormal condition of cer- 
tain parts of the body permits abnormal reactions to 
these stimuli in such a way that individuals become dif- 
ferent. Idealistic psychology provides a study of the in- 
dividual as well as the class. Nowhere is such observa- 
tion of greater importance than in the sexual associations 

209 



210 THE NEXT GENERATION 

of men and women. The student of sociology must recog- 
nize these variations in his endeavor to provide solutions 
for our social ills. 

In the attempt to establish a condition of universal 
social purity, many enthusiasts have a panacea in " sex 
hygiene." If our girls and boys can only be taught to 
know themselves, biologically, physiologically and sex- 
ually, then the problem is solved ; vice and immorality will 
diminish. These persons mean well and possibly even the 
teaching of the most radical might do no harm, but this 
treatment is no " cure-all." Many of these sex instruc- 
tors should be given a lesson or many lessons in practical 
physiology and sociology. They are not beginning at 
the bottom of practical eugenics. We can temporarily 
subdue a wild beast by an iron cage and the trainer's club, 
but its nature changes but little. Reason and a healthy 
body are necessary for man to subdue himself. 

Education is an essential thing, but a simple knowledge 
of abstract things is frequently of little value. The thief 
knows he may be imprisoned, the murderer knows he may 
be executed, the young man sowing his wild oats knows he 
may reap tares, but the knowledge of the penalties does 
not lessen crime. In the last report of the Allegheny 
County Workhouse, we learn that from 1869 to 1912 
there were committed to that institution 152,432 persons. 
Of this number 71,704 were committed two or more terms ; 
451 ten times; 361 twenty times; 112 thirty times; 54 
forty times ; and 357 fifty or more times. 

There were 3,994 convictions in the women's court, New 
York, in two years ending August 31, 1912. In this short 
time, 1,740 were repeaters; 164 were convicted five times; 



TEACHING SEX HYGIENE 211 

57 seven times ; 7 ten times ; and 2 twelve times. Surely 
the besetting sins of these unfortunate persons were too 
strong for their power of resistance. An early knowledge 
of sex matters might have prevented a few of these women 
from living a life frequently leading to the prison cell. 
A good home would have saved most of them from this 
sad fate. 

Dr. M. J. Exner, secretary student department of the 
International Committee of the Young Men's Christian 
Association, recently sent a questionnaire of thirteen ques- 
tions relative to sex education to the secretaries of the 
college Young Men's Christian Associations throughout 
the country. Sixty-three replies were received from 
prominent colleges and universities located in all sections 
of the United States. The replies show that every one of 
the sixty-three institutions make some provision for edu- 
cating students in the matter of sex. 

The reports indicate that there is a decrease in venereal 
disease in these institutions (in one college, instead of 
125 cases of venereal disease after a single football game, 
15 is now a fair estimate) ; the attitude of coarseness and 
vulgarity toward the subject of sex has given place to one 
of serious respect; and the whole *noral tone has been 
changed. It would thus appear that college football is 
not an eugenic factor; the physical development of the 
players is more than counterbalanced by the effect of 
venereal diseases on the enthusiastic cheering sections and 
many women and children in later years. College presi- 
dents will please take note. I have little sympathy with 
any college which compels chapel attendance in the morn- 
ings and then closes its eyes to the evils attending contests 



212 THE NEXT GENERATION 

and social events followed by drinking and debauchery. 
We have shown that " wild oats " are not necessary for 
men, and in like manner the college boys are not obliged 
to commit overt acts which can only be a hindrance to 
race development. 

This is a serious attempt on the part of the writer to 
show why public sentiment is opposed, as it is clearly dem- 
onstrated in the press, against the teaching of sex hygiene 
in our schools. There is no hope of success in sex instruc- 
tion to our school children as long as the parents them- 
selves do not maintain a higher standard, knowing sex 
matters as they do. In the same spirit of relaxation and 
celebration, the more august fathers who convene as dele- 
gates to a political, fraternal or business convention occa- 
sionally see the sights when away from home. Would it 
be thought the teaching of sex matters to these delegates 
on the way to the convention would produce a state of 
subjugation? Or does it clearly prove there are many 
factors besides simple knowledge which must be reckoned 
with? 

Let us hope that none of our intelligent fathers! wish to 
prevent their wives and children from learning important 
truths; from knowing that sexual sins are punished by 
awful penalties. Every boy and girl should know the 
mysteries of life as far as the father and mother can teach 
it. It is true that many a child is born in the maternity 
hospital, with the stigma of " no father " branded upon 
its forehead for life, simply because the mother did not 
tell the innocent girl a few simple facts of reproduction. 

If the parents neglect to instruct their children con- 
cerning these most important things, should the school 



TEACHING SEX HYGIENE 213 

undertake this task? The agitation on the question is 
becoming very warm. At the last meeting of the World's 
Purity Congress, a resolution was passed urging the intro- 
duction of safe and sane sex education directly into nor- 
mal and high schools, and indirectly into secondary 
schools. It urged that teachers be prepared to avail 
themselves for giving this instruction, and that it be given 
a place in teachers' institutions and conventions. It also 
urged parents to avail themselves of opportunities offered 
through the church, school and other organized forces in 
preparing themselves to properly instruct their children 
in sex matters. 

B. S. Steadwell, president of the above congress, says: 
" In all movements that spell progress there are certain 
questions or principles that are absolutely fixed and that 
must be steadfastly adhered to or the cause itself must 
fail and go to pieces. This is signally true to-day of the 
movement that demands the instruction of children in the 
purposes, problems and perils of sex. Our policy of 
silence on these matters throughout all the past has 
wrought disaster and cannot be honestly reviewed with 
satisfaction. Therefore we believe that every child has a 
right to know all there is to be known, that can serve him, 
as to himself, and especially as pertains to his physical 
body, and that this knowledge ought to be imparted to 
him in a form adapted to his age and powers. Now what 
is to be done with debatable questions? The only earthly 
thing is to debate them. Therefore let us be glad for the 
present discussions on the hygiene. It is the best thing 
that can happen. Opposition never killed a righteous 
cause. Apathy, lethargy, inanition mean death to any 



214 THE NEXT GENERATION 

movement." 

The objections to teaching sex hygiene in the school 
are: (1) Public opinion; (2) few teachers are capable of 
giving instructions in matters of sex; (3) absence of 
tested courses of study; (4) to be effective must include 
the elementary schools, which are considered dangerous 
for this instruction; (5) danger of awakening an interest 
in sex matters at a too early age ; (6) knowledge would 
rob the children of that sweet ignorance of the terrible 
evils of life. The editor of Vigilance, the organ of the 
American Social Hygiene Association, says : " Sex edu- 
cation cannot be comprehensively treated without a con- 
sideration of sex morals, nor is the welfare against com- 
mercialized vice adequate without consideration of sex 
education. Our problem is in its essential elements a scien- 
tific one. On one side it enters the domains of physiology, 
psychology and pathology ; on the other those of soci- 
ology, criminology and of political science." In looking 
over 141 clippings for one month, this editor found the 
majority in favor of sex instruction in the home and op- 
posed to it in the schools. Some of these opinions on this 
subject are quite interesting and relevant to a solution. 

Prof. Thomas H. Balliet says : " No one questions the 
possibility of doing a vast deal of good by enlightening 
fathers and mothers on this vital subject. Public senti- 
ment is ripe everywhere for this step and competent per- 
sons can be found usually among the medical profession." 
The Philadelphia Ledger, September 7, 1913, protests 
against that alarming fad now possessing some advanced 
educators — the dangerous fad of giving to little children 
in the schools the sort of instruction that is tantamount to 



TEACHING SEX HYGIENE 215 

a mud bath. It says : " The country is obsessed by an 
unholy wage for vice investigation and vice exploitation. 
It has threatened to debauch the stage, but wise men and 
women, whose strong sense is above the superficial specu- 
lations of amateur sociologists, will oppose the attempt to 
institute vice teaching in the public schools." 

The fear of sex knowledge is seen in Collier's, October 
18, 1913: " The psychologists are welcome to their end- 
less wrangles as to the precise extent to which sex discus- 
sion arouses. . . . Any system of instruction which gives 
a knowledge of sex hygiene merely as mechanical knowl- 
edge will be a gigantic mistake." Monsignor John A. 
Shepard writes in the Journal of Jersey City, October 6, 
1913 : " Just at present our ears are dinned with a fad 
of sex hygiene. Its introduction into the schools is dis- 
cussed throughout the country. If ever there was a sys- 
tem diabolically devised to injure our youth, and to make 
them voluptuaries, this is by far the most effective." 

The Lowell Sun, September 26, 1913, says: "Sex 
education in the schools is one of the latest manifesta- 
tions of modernism gone mad." The Milwaukee Free 
Press, November 1, 1913, quotes Miss Ida Tarbell: "I 
am extremely doubtful as to the wisdom of teaching sex 
hygiene in the public schools, much as I realize the need 
for sane, clean consideration of the matter. I believe it 
would be wiser to bend all our energies toward convincing 
mothers and fathers of their obligation in meeting this 
need." 

The Free Press agrees with Miss Tarbell, but remarks, 
as we all should know : " There will always be a host of 
parents, especially among the uneducated and irresponsi- 



216 THE NEXT GENERATION 

ble, who, no matter what their knowledge on the subject, 
will be unable to convey it to their children in a tactful, 
sensible, wholesome and impressive manner." 

Aye! There is the rub. It is the great mass of par- 
ents who will never know or care to know how to instruct 
their children in these matters. Enough has been said in 
these articles on the defectives, on crime, and on poverty 
to clearly show that society must demand conditions which 
will be for a betterment of our inferior classes ; those whom 
we burden and who are a burden to us. The above quota- 
tions from the press are from Vigilance, December, 1913, 
and as it stands for the highest ideals in all matters of 
purity, favoring sane teaching of sex hygiene, much credit 
must be given this journal for quoting these adverse opin- 
ions. It follows the criticisms with many quotations 
which are very favorable to and insistent upon instruction 
on sex hygiene in the public schools. These opinions are 
too well known to be quoted. 

The Louisville (Ky.) Tvmes, November 7, 1913, says: 
" The social hygiene exhibit of the Kentucky School of 
Social Hygiene was opened to-day, in the Y. M. C. A. 
building. The purpose of the exhibit is to educate in 
the methods of prevention of sexual disease and vices, and 
through instruction in sex hygiene to improve society and 
protect future generations." 

Ella Flagg Young, many years superintendent of the 
Chicago schools, recently stated: " Parental objection to 
the teaching of sex hygiene in Chicago schools has prac- 
tically disappeared, since the parents learned the exact 
nature of the new course. The only opposition that now 
exists comes from outside sources and from persons who 



TEACHING SEX HYGIENE 217 

do not really understand what we are teaching." The 
Chicago School Board has since, on account of politics, 
by a vote of 13 to 8, taken the instruction of sex hygiene 
out of the high school. 

Knowing society as we do, with thousands of children 
growing up without proper sex instruction, what should 
we advise? I am firmly convinced that the child must be 
educated by some one in these matters, or he will acquaint 
himself with these things at the wrong time and place. A 
general plan of morals can be interwoven with other les- 
sons by any teacher of ability. This does not mean that 
she must teach sex matters, but this instruction must de- 
velop a moral tone in a child so that it will seek for further 
instruction at home. I agree with the editor of the 
Atlanta Constitution: " Whatever the outcome, and if 
we are to make progress to this use of education it is 
evident that the first party to be educated is the parent. 
Their diffidence in approaching the topic, and clumsiness 
in handling it, are two of the hurtful objects to a splendid 
conceived movement." 

If the parents are to teach their children these things 
we must teach the parents. A good example is the Buena 
Park Parent-Teacher Association of Los Angeles ; there 
the mothers of that district got together, decided that 
for the sake of their children it was their duty to study 
sex hygiene for themselves. They purchased books, pro- 
vided lecturers and are now able to instruct their children. 

A limited course in these matters should be given by 
women physicians in the high schools and colleges, and 
similar instruction to boys by men physicians. Very few 
teachers are capable of teaching these questions properly. 



218 THE NEXT GENERATION 

It is quite possible that men's organizations of the 
churches is the best place to instruct the fathers and young 
men. Similar mothers' meetings should be held in churches 
and schools for providing knowledge pertaining to the 
girls. Every mother should instruct her daughter to look 
after her physical welfare. She should decide as to the 
fashion of the dress. Modesty, we believe, is due to the 
wearing of clothes. Such being true, it will not be long 
until many women will have lost this modesty, for unre- 
strained animals and plants always revert to former par- 
ents, and woman is fast reverting to the Garden of Eden. 
The Fiji Islanders are not modest. 

Mothers must be taught what amusements, habits of 
life, and companions are best for the children. They 
must be able to instruct the girls as to the true wife, 
duties of motherhood, and finally the nature, acquirement' 
and dangers of venereal disease. 

The Church and society must demand that there be 
more mothers and fathers in the real sense of these words ; 
let home be a place where parents and children love to 
dwell, and if such can be accomplished there will be less 
danger to those who may still be innocent on sexual mat- 
ters. 

Dr. J. A. Doleris, La Gyn, November, 1910, says: 
" Sexual education will lead young people toward a higher 
goal, show them early the true significance of life, guide 
them to a sufficient knowledge of human biology, and 
inculcate a logical conception of the laws of nature which 
rule our lives. It is time to put an end to the ignorance, 
and mystery of sexual matters, derived from religious 
dogma, which has been thrown around the highest and 



TEACHING SEX HYGIENE 219 

most essential function of life, reproduction. The austere 
morality of religion has accomplished little. There is no 
desire to lessen the dominance of true love in marriage 
by education, but to give a true appreciation of the phys- 
ical and psychical qualities necessary to produce healthy 
and strong offspring; to substitute this for an idealized 
romantic sentiment, or a materialistic satisfaction of the 
sensual element. We must break with a system of educa- 
tion whose worst consequence is to give a false judgment 
to children, to pervert their imagination and sometimes 
even to indicate them to vice." 



MARRIAGE AND EUGENICS 

THERE is no problem in eugenics which has caused 
so much consideration as that of marriage. It is 
probable that eugenists have given more attention 
to this phase of producing a healthy race than to all other 
related subjects. It is but natural that such should be 
the result of a study to improve mankind. Since " like 
begets like," the attention of students of sociology is 
directed to the fact that good healthy parents will more 
likely have healthy children than will those less healthy. 
Then it must be concluded that persons healthy at the 
time of marriage will more likely be healthy at the time 
of procreation than those who marry, tainted with syphi- 
lis, tuberculosis, alcoholism, mental deficiency, etc. 

For these reasons, to-day, on the one hand we find very 
free discussion of healthy persons who should marry, and 
on the other, reasons why some others should not marry. 
Explanations are given why healthy, intelligent young 
men and women refrain from entering into the marriage 
relation, until a late age, if at all. 

In the United States census of 1910, there Were of all 
ages, 41.7 per cent, males and 47.£ per cent, females mar- 
ried, widowed or divorced. Of the males, 38 per cent, 
were married, 3.1 per cent, widowers, 0.3 per cent, di- 
vorced, and 0.3 per cent, reported. Of the females, 39.6 
per cent, were married, 7.1 per cent, widows, 0.4 per cent, 
divorced, and 0.2 per cent, not reported. 

Sixty per cent, of all males and 70 per cent, of all fe- 

220 



MARBIAGE AND EUGENICS 221 

males, over fifteen years of age, were married, widowed 
or divorced; 4.5 per cent, of these males were widowers 
and 10.6 per cent, (more than twice as many) females 
were widows. This proportion of widowers and widows 
is partially accounted for by reason of more widowers 
remarrying and because men die earlier on account of the 
nature of their work, and to some extent their pleasures. 

There were over seven million single men and only four 
million single women between the ages of twenty and forty- 
four. We have already shown that the number of male 
and female children born is about the same, hence it must 
be concluded that women marry at an earlier age ; further- 
more, our immigrants show a much greater proportion of 
single men than single women. Were all of both sexes 
between twenty-five and forty compelled to marry, the 
excess of single men over the single women would be bal- 
anced by the widows being much more numerous than the 
widowers. Nature always endeavors to maintain an equi- 
librium. 

In the United States there are over thirteen million per- 
sons of both sexes unmarried. It is interesting from a 
sociological standpoint to note that in the cities and towns, 
38 per cent, of the men and 26 per cent, of the women, 
between twenty-five and thirty-four were single, while in 
the country or rural districts, but 31 per cent, of the 
men and 15 per cent, of the women were single. Surely 
farm life predisposes to a sure and generally an early 
marriage. 

Practically all writers on the question of marriage begin 
their argument with the mating of animals, showing that 
many of them live a monogamous life; then they mention 



222 THE NEXT GENERATION 

the social relations of primitive races of man. Many of 
these by virtue of their nomadic life lived in a state of 
exogamy. 

To many it may be surprising to know that since the 
beginning of authentic history to the present time there 
have been many tribes of savage, barbarous, and semi- 
civilized people in which the maternal system of family 
inheritance was the custom and law. Is it not mentioned 
in Genesis, " Therefore shall a man leave his father and 
mother and cleave unto his wife " ? Under this system 
the man would become a part of the wife's family, in some 
places even taking her name. 

" It has been very generally assumed that maternal de- 
scent is due largely to uncertainty of paternity, and that 
an admission that the maternal system has been universal 
is practically an admission of promiscuity. Opponents of 
this theory have consequently felt called upon to minimize 
the importance of maternal descent. But descent through 
females is not, in fact, fully explained by uncertainty of 
parentage on the male side. It is due to the larger social 
fact, including this biological one, that the bond between 
the mother and child is closest in nature, and that the 
group grew up about the more stationary female, and 
consequently the questions of maternal descent and pro- 
miscuity are by no means so inseparable as has been 
commonly supposed." — Professor Thomas, Sex and So- 
ciety. 

As was mentioned in the discussion of Female Labor, 
much of the history of man shows that by nature man is 
the warrior and the hunter, while woman had to raise the 
family, till the soil and even made the arrows, mold the 



MARRIAGE AND EUGENICS 223 

bullets and tan the hides of animals brought home. Since 
she was the mainstay of the home, she was the government 
and sometimes she was allowed to have several husbands. 

The relation of the sexes has at different times and 
places taken every possible form we are able to conceive 
of. These different forms of the sexual status have been 
determined by the condition of the people and their rela- 
tions to one another. But whatever the form, it has al- 
ways been an example of motion in the direction of least 
resistance, or greater attraction. 

Let us grant for the sake of argument that Adam was 
created in the Garden of Eden, made in the image of God, 
and that a perfect physical woman, Eve, was made for 
him from his own rib. We have here then man and woman 
perfect from an eugenic standpoint. Their children, and 
children's children to the present time, if no attempt had 
been made to improve each generation by special selection 
should be the same to-day as when they first saw their 
nakedness and were ashamed. We believe man is the same 
to-day as he is described in Genesis. Man is full of the 
" old Adam," just as bad as he was. Man can kill as 
easily as did his son Cain. Man is the same old man. 
But we do change our natures, we are continually being 
acted upon by the various forces, which producing vari- 
ations and modifications, have many classes of people with 
various varieties of families, many of which have more or 
less pronounced types of individual hybrids and mongrels. 

The animal breeder, who may observe twenty-five parts 
of a Plymouth Rock's make-up and marking to be judged 
at the bird show, or who may pay ten thousand dollars for 
a White Orpington hen, or who may feed, stable and 



£24 THE NEXT GENERATION 

breed his sheep and hogs as if they were worth their 
weight in gold, has been busy teaching man that children 
were almost as good as pigs and goats. Society has 
awakened, and realizes that there has been too much " fall- 
ing in love," and " heaven-made marriages." Many aero- 
planes have broken their steering wheels and fallen to 
earth. Many angels (for a while) are now every day 
human beings. Marriage is a reality; courtship was a 
mirage. Many are hunting for the oasis. 

Virtue may be blind to a degree, but its vision is most 
excellent compared to that of love. Love is too often 
blindness personified — the shades of night in the Arctic 
winter. Too oft it is but the beating of a passioned 
breast ; the physical emotion without any semblance of a 
spiritual man or woman. On the other hand true love, 
unbiased by physical " tropisms " to distort and annul 
normal reason, is the sweetest thing on earth; it is life 
itself; a continual sunshine, with no thought of clouds 
and storms and the bitter things of life. 

Such a true ideal union of two lives would require but 
little eugenic consideration. But we must accept the situ- 
ation as it presents itself. The divorce courts, the cases 
of wife beating, nonsupport, infidelity, and many others 
too numerous to mention, furnish the press with a large 
part of the important daily events. It is for such rea- 
sons that eugenics must furnish a partial solution for our 
social whirlpool of domestic infelicity, illegitimate chil- 
dren, etc., in the great social unrest. 

It is plain from such considerations that, with the prog- 
ress of civilization, marriage becomes an institution which 
may give greater joy, or which may inflict deeper misery. 



MARRIAGE AND EUGENICS 225 

There are three general methods of looking at the mar- 
riage relation: (1) Marriage for love; (£) business 
method, as marriage for property and family consider- 
ations ; (3) friendship and companionship. In the primi- 
tive tribes we find the sexual interest very great, and a 
woman was of great value from this viewpoint. 

Later, we find that many conquests were followed by 
marriages between men and women of the victorious and 
the conquered nations. Alexander chose his wives from 
the nations he subdued; he insisted that his courtiers do 
the same. When the Romans wanted to weaken Mace- 
donia, they ordered that there should be no inter-mar- 
riages between the people of different provinces. The 
national reason is seen in royal marriages of to-day be- 
tween prince and princess of nations who wish thus to 
seal an agreement to remain on friendly terms. It is for 
power, prominence and finance that the articles of agree- 
ment are signed whereby a " has been " count or a " duke's 
mixture " agrees to deliver the name of the family crest 
and the keys of an " about to be foreclosed " castle, to a 
certain " butter-scotch " or a " pork and beans " Chicago 
millionaire, once a poor boy, in return for which the gen- 
erous count or duke is to receive a small sum of " hand 
money " for signing the valuable articles, also an annuity 
of some hundred thousand as long as the guarantor re- 
mains solvent, and finally he is to take charge of the 
donor's daughter " to boot." This form of marriage is 
not recommended by any eugenists for the titled gen- 
tlemen could seldom present evidence of being eugenically 
able to continue good healthy generations. 

Most people with even a small amount of American 



226 THE NEXT GENERATION 

patriotism decry such an international marriage, whereby 
we lose so much gold to Europe, and receive in return 
only scandal in years to come. But how many mothers 
and fathers, how many daughters themselves are not using 
every means at their command to make a certain catch 
regardless of who and what the man is, physically and 
morally? How many men have set their nets for fish with 
golden scales? 

The morality of the marriage state is very different as it 
is looked at from these different points of view. The mar- 
riage relation is said to be pure if legally sanctioned, and 
the Church makes it holy by giving its blessing, although 
the parties bound by it may have neither love nor friend- 
ship for each other. 

The Kansas Board of Education recently called atten- 
tion to the value of domestic science courses in the schools 
as a check upon divorce. Of 800 girls graduated from 
the higher State schools since domestic science courses 
were added, 440 have been married and not one has 
sought either a separation or a divorce. Therefore the 
board concludes that a girl who can furnish a good meal 
properly cooked and daintily served, is liable to do her 
own mending and trim some of her own hats, besides keep- 
ing her home neat and attractive. 

Enough has been said to inform the man and woman 
contemplating marriage to stop and seriously consider 
whether or not each or both of them are physically, 
morally and financially capable of entering into and con- 
tinuing a reasonably satisfactory married life. Both par- 
ties may measure up to every requirement any body of 
scientific men might present and still the marriage would 



MARRIAGE AND EUGENICS 227 

not be a success, because the two parties were tempera- 
mentally different. The marriage state is somewhat of a 
lottery. It is the only institution into which, in most 
States, all may enter — the lame, the halt, the diseased, 
the pauper, the convict, the mentally defective — and be 
allowed to reproduce their kind, many of which will be 
supported in penal and charitable institutions. 

So difficult is the solution of proper mating and of the 
right to bear children that we have many views, beginning 
with that of free love societies where the State may care 
for all children; then the opinion of Bernard Shaw, who 
believes that all women should have the privilege of ma- 
ternity, married or not; and next, the general view of 
most persons who believe that all who desire should be 
permitted to marry; finally, we see that of the extreme 
eugenists who claim that only those passing the most rigid 
physical examination should be allowed the marriage privi- 
lege. 

In the near future we must demonstrate that plants, 
animals, and human beings are entirely different as far 
as " breeding true " is concerned. So many influences are 
brought to bear upon the various forms of organic life 
that this might be so. Burbank will cast aside thousands 
of plants just to secure one that is just right for his ex- 
periments. Civilized people, at least, are mongrels, in 
that each individual contains " units " representing in- 
numerable ancestors in the dominant and recessive charac- 
teristics of their physical structure. What then must be 
the presentation of various ancestors in their mental 
manifestations? A reasonable effort should be made for 
more better and less undesirable marriages, which will give 



£28 THE NEXT GENERATION 

us happier homes, better society, and from an economic 
standpoint save us millions of dollars in caring for the 
defectives, diseased, paupers and criminals. 

Oscar Heath of the Englewood High Schools, Chicago, 
in " Composts of Tradition," says : " Marriage is a re- 
strictive device which interferes with the greatest func- 
tion for which mankind was created, and at the same time 
supplies an opportunity for the grossest immorality under 
the guise or disguise of holy matrimony. The greatest 
virtue a woman has is her longing for children. The 
greatest vice man has is his desire to monopolize her pro- 
ductivity. The wedding ring is the badge of the bondage 
of woman's virtue to man's vice. Why should not the 
man wear the wedding ring as a token that he belongs to 
woman? Society should pension mothers who are wives 
and should provide both subsidies and pensions for moth- 
ers who have the courage to become such without first be- 
coming wives." 

With some of this I agree, but the average mother who 
has support for her children does not wish medals and 
pensions. Her children are her honor. Those who should 
and will not have children are the ones who will be dishon- 
ored, and there is the reward of the real mother. The 
poor mother trying to support her children frequently 
deserves and will soon receive support from the State. 
The greatest coward in a civilized country is the man 
who is responsible for the birth of a child and allows the 
unmarried mother to bear and care for that child without 
giving them financial assistance. Our laws must be re- 
vised in this matter. If he refuses his support he should 
be sentenced to the workhouse and the value of his wages 



MARRIAGE AND EUGENICS 229 

given to these poor unfortunates for their support. 

Dr. Emmet Densmore, in " Sex Equality," says : " We 
cannot determine by experiment whether a day nurs- 
ery, under competent supervision is not as much bet- 
ter for our infants than home nursing, as our day school 
is better than any ordinary method of home teaching. . . . 
The strong vigorous mother skilled in some trade or pro- 
fession by which she might earn as much as or even more 
than her husband has time in the morning to give her child 
an ample caressing, to look into the adequacy of its care, 
and then leave for the day to engage in lucrative, con- 
genial employment that to many would be more attractive 
than the monotonous tedium of an unchanging environ- 
ment where endless household cares, routine work and 
drudgery weary and dishearten — she is far more likely 
to engage her husband with interesting or intellectual con- 
versation and make herself attractive than her worn-out 
prototype of the present day. He is not nearly so apt 
to seek his evening relaxation elsewhere." 

The views of Dr. Densmore are certainly very radical. 
He cannot want the average woman whose husband can 
support her, and in the ideal state of home life all should, 
to seek employment elsewhere. He evidently realizes the 
great demand of the family to provide modern dress, home 
furnishings and amusements to keep up with the times. 
He thinks of the New York school teachers who cannot 
be married and have children. He observes the vast army 
of girls who are working at good salaries and cannot 
marry the average young men who are unable to support 
them as they have been accustomed to by their own efforts. 
Many of these women as well as those working at a less 



230 THE NEXT GENERATION 

wage and those unemployed finally hear the call of na- 
ture, the maternal instinct, and marry hoping for the 
best. 

I am firmly convinced that we should make labor and 
social conditions such that more of our men and women 
could marry at an earlier age. And while we are striving 
for the marriage of more of the physically able, we must 
prevent by rational methods the marriage of the unfit. As 
long as the sanction of the Church is asked and their 
ministers and priests solemnize the wedding ceremonies, 
they must feel it their duty to assist in preventing the 
unfit to marry. Many of these excellent men are already 
doing much in this respect. 

The parents and women must demand that man be as 
good physically as the woman. The unfortunate woman 
is cast aside, a stigma upon her and her child while the 
man demands a woman who has always led a life of virtue. 

" If the vilest mortal that lives sees proper to marry, 
the law issues the license for the asking, takes the fee, 
makes the record, and leaves the offspring and society to 
shift for themselves as best they can, even paupers, while 
in the poorhouse, and criminals, while in jail, are in every 
way encouraged and given licenses to marry, and are pro- 
tected by the law. No thought is taken for the unfortu- 
nate offspring, or for the body politic and social, and 
the irreparable evils that must fall upon all. The Church 
adds its sanction, and its ministers aid in making these 
contracts by performing a ceremony with prayers and 
benedictions. If it is wise to prohibit polygamy, mar- 
riage between relations, and between persons whose insan- 
ity or idiocy is self-evident, it is equally wise to prohibit 



MARRIAGE AND EUGENICS 231 

it in all cases where evil may follow. If the law has the 
power to prohibit or punish violation in the one case, it 
has equal right in all others. 

" There is an endless procession of children from all 
these sources coming into the mass of population to live 
lives of crime, immorality, want, suffering, misfortune, and 
degeneracy, transmitting the taint in constantly widen- 
ing streams, generation after generation, with the ulti- 
mate certainty of the deterioration of the race and final 
irreparable degeneracy." — Reeve. 

" However much of our optimistic bent may incline us 
to envelop the future in an effulgence of bliss, we must, 
nevertheless, come in our cooler moments to the facts of 
recorded and present experience, and these compel us to 
reject the notion of perfect harmony in the affectional 
relations at any time or under any circumstances, as a 
Utopian dream." — Anonymous. 

" Why Men do not Marry," from the Strand — Dr. 
C. W. Saleeby : " We shall need to make the conditions 
of marriage, including divorce, infinitely fairer for women 
if marriage is to maintain its place in the social structure." 
Canon Horsley : " The cause which occurs to me as the 
chief, is that young men, more than young women, re- 
quire a higher standard of living at the beginning of 
housekeeping than their parents." Sarah Bernhardt: 
" It is, I feel sure, the change in manners, habits, customs 
of the times that is responsible for the steadily decreasing 
marriage rate." Arthur Bourchier : " In my humble 
opinion the fact that the marriage rate is declining is al- 
most the fault of the woman. The modern woman is less 
forbearing and patient than was her grandmother. She 



232 THE NEXT GENERATION 

is too excessively prone to indulge in that most unpleasant 
of all habits — nagging." Sir Hiram Maxim : " Higher 
education of the children; increase in number of the de- 
pendents ; high cost of living ; and desire of young ladies 
for as luxurious a home as they have." Mrs. C. N. Wil- 
liamson : " Because the cost of things keeps going up. 
Poverty seems to come in at the door unless a chauffeur can 
drive up to it with some vague cheap suggestion of a mo- 
tor-car, and Love stands ready to bolt out of the window 
unless it can be curtained with the most charming muslin 
and chintz." 

George K. Kneeland, a well-known investigator, says, 
in discussing a solution to diminish social ills : " Use your 
influence to bring about better economic and industrial 
conditions so that fathers can be masters in their home; 
so that young men can marry early in life. Teach ig- 
norant mothers and fathers so that they will love and 
understand their children more than they do. 

" Teach boys and young men to honor womanhood. 
You can make them realize that young girls represent 
more than half of all future generations ; that upon them 
depends the health and power of the race, that to injure 
a girl, take advantage of her racial instinct at a critical 
moment is a crime against unborn generations. Men must 
learn to sacrifice themselves, if need be, for the good of 
the race. Use your influence to restore to the home the 
simple, yet powerful protection which grows out of the 
belief in the religion of our fathers." 



WHY GIRLS GO WRONG 

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
As to be hated, needs but to be seen; 

But seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We must endure, then pity, then embrace. 

THESE words of Pope open up a great philosoph- 
ical problem. In each of us there is a residuum 
of our forefathers, including no small amount of 
disease. Some of us may have a certain amount of natu- 
ral immunity to certain temptations and vices, others 
acquire a further immunity by continual resistance to 
these assaults on our various natures, which eventually 
becomes sufficient to withstand the average temptations of 
life. 

Man is an animal normally endowed by more or less of 
the " sex pull." A proper restraint of this nature de- 
pends upon a healthy body and a sufficient degree of intelli- 
gence. The various structures of the human organism 
are endowed with the property of reaction to many stimuli 
internal and external to that organism. An abnormal 
condition of certain parts of the body shows abnormal 
reactions to these stimuli in such a way that no two per- 
sons, although apparently alike, will show exactly the same 
response, hence they are more or less different. The stu- 
dent of sociology must recognize these differences in his 
endeavor to provide solutions for our social ills. We may 
classify conditions, but in the end the active worker must 

233 



234 THE NEXT GENERATION 

study the individual, hence the difficult task before us in 
providing a cure for the social evil. In my investigations 
of this enormous problem I have studied hundreds of 
individual cases. In five years' service to a Maternity 
Hospital, it was my duty to take care of several hundred 
girls and young women who gave birth to illegitimate 
children. Who can imagine the sorrows in the lives of 
these unfortunate women! What was the cause of their 
failure to show a sufficient amount of resistance? Who 
can point the finger of scorn at these women and say that 
they alone were to blame? 

All temptations are much less dangerous if the individual 
secures every possible means to increase her resistance. 
As will be mentioned later, companions determine largely 
the needs of an individual. Frequently one is compelled 
to associate with those who exert a very evil influence over 
others. As reasonable judges we cannot expect young 
girls to choose the best. Natural forces follow the lines of 
least resistance; it is easier to play than to work and to 
satisfy the animal nature than to resist. The remedy lies 
with society or that part of society that has to do with the 
uplift of mankind. It is the duty of the Church as a 
whole, not this or that denomination, to provide means 
whereby every girl can be surrounded with good influences 
much of the time. Utopia provides a " big sister " whose 
duty it will be to prevent the downfall of those less for- 
tunate. It will be the duty of society to provide safe 
employment, healthful exercise, clean amusements and re- 
ligious teachings for every girl. Thousands spent in 
prophylaxis is many times better than millions in cure of 
social ills which rarely cure. 



WHY GIRLS GO WRONG 235 

Why do girls go wrong? The social evil has always 
been present with us and to a greater or less extent will 
be for generations to come. In civilized communities the 
double standard of morals, where the girl is censured, dis- 
graced and cast from society with no helping hand, none 
to care for her and restore her to a happy home, while 
the man is allowed to remain an ornament to society, 
often pitied, is the most important factor in producing 
this evil. Second in importance is the home life where 
a failure of the parents to properly provide education in 
morals, where the home life is full of strife, misery, im- 
proper chastisements and lack of healthful pleasure. 
Countless parents to-day are either too ignorant or occu- 
pied in other things to care for the welfare of their chil- 
dren. To a great extent the mother is to blame for the 
waywardness of the daughter. This training must be 
begun sufficiently early to be effective. The mother should 
know the character of the boy and girl friends ; she should 
know positively as the daughter reaches the age full of 
temptations, whether or not she is always at places told 
her. Remaining over night with a girl friend or at a 
public cafe for dinner or after theater supper, is danger- 
ous to some young girls and many older ones. In this 
connection we mention poor tenement houses badly ven- 
tilated, illness of parents, drunkenness, poverty on one 
hand, and on the other the demands of society, small 
families, children given over to a governess, balls, wine 
suppers and divorce. 

The next factor is that of companions. The good apple 
never improves the bad one. The words of Pope are very 
pertinent in this connection. The girl who works in a 



236 THE NEXT GENERATION 

factory, or stands behind a counter all day, going home 
tired at night, compelled to live in a house full of tur- 
moil, probably giving most or all of her small earnings 
to help the family, will after a time give close attention 
to those of her companions who are passing their evenings 
in a more exciting way, at a dance hall and other places 
of amusement. She soon learns that many are obtaining 
money other than what they receive as wages. Finally 
the temptations of a still further life of ease are presented 
to her and her downfall is easily accomplished. 

The wage question has been continually mentioned as 
the one reason why girls go wrong. I cannot agree with 
those who place this first; other conditions being as they 
should, very few girls will fall for this reason alone. It 
is true that many girls in factories and stores will and 
do go wrong, but there are other factors back of low wages. 
We should have a minimum wage for all working women 
and all should work to secure the enactment of such laws. 
But in studying the wage of the girl behind the counter 
we must not lose sight of the temptation with which she is 
continually met. The good looking girl falls before her 
homely sister with similar home life and wages. The 
events in the downward path of the clerk are frequently 
as follows : A man, too frequently married, is attracted 
by the comely appearance of the girl. He starts a con- 
versation with her, using a little flattery; at a second or 
later appearance he importunes her to lunch, then a 
dinner, theater with wine supper, automobile ride perhaps, 
and likely a visit to the house of a friend, which proves to 
be an assignation house; presents as hats, dresses, com- 
plete her desire for a life of ease. She may become a 



WHY GIRLS GO WRONG 237 

mother, disgraced, and pass her subsequent life in a house 
of prostitution. 

Very many a virtuous girl believes the man who prom- 
ises to marry her and is happy and secure in this belief; 
she permits her resistance to temptations to be lowered to 
such a degree that she virtually becomes his mistress. 
The knowledge of her weakness and his desire for a virtu- 
ous girl causes him to grow cold, and finally abandon her 
to a life of shame. Having taken one bite out of the 
apple of dangerous experience she may think that a few 
more bites will not make her any worse. If she has become 
pregnant many a man will not be willing to face the world 
with a wife in trouble, even though he be the cause of it. 
No, he must marry when he may choose and be able to look 
the world in the face and say he did no wrong. Many 
thousands of women are in houses of prostitution and sup- 
porting illegitimate children, for the only reason that these 
women were forsaken because they believed in the promise 
of man. 

A mother that does not observe that her daughter 
is wearing clothes which could not be purchased with her 
share of her earnings is certainly assisting in her ruin. 
Vanity and a life of ease with amusements easily follow 
when these opportunities have been offered and accepted. 
The cloak models and higher priced sales-ladies accept 
these offers as frequently as their poorly paid sisters. A 
very small percentage of girls become prostitutes from sex- 
ual desire alone. An increase of wages is too frequently 
followed by an increase in expenditures for dress, with the 
result that the savings are no greater than before. Home 
extravagances are becoming so great that the age of mar- 



238 THE NEXT GENERATION 

riage is becoming too late for real homes. The ability of 
the woman to obtain a salary equal to the man frequently 
prevents her marrying until late, if at all. The auto- 
mobile, alcohol, and late hours are very important factors 
in lowering the resistance of the girl to a life of virtue. 
When the courting hours reach into the small hours of 
the night, the young people are treading on dangerous 
grounds. As when a man is intoxicated with too much 
alcohol, so are those sexual passions which are allowed to 
have full sway, with no restraining hand of reason which 
has been banished in those late hours of imaginary love. 

Last but not least is the marriage of the unfit. The day 
is not far distant when the marriage license will include a 
certificate of health which will permit the married couple 
to live a more happy life with less possibilities of extra- 
conjugal intercourse and later divorce and what fre- 
quently happens to the woman, a life in a house of prosti- 
tution. The girl must be taught that she has sexual 
organs which must be properly cared for; that certain 
physiological processes are especially active during 
puberty. That in this developmental period certain events 
must occur and should do so regularly unless interrupted 
by pregnancy. They must be taught how this pregnant 
condition is brought about, what it means and the result. 
They must know the result of infection with venereal dis- 
ease, how it may affect their health and children. I must 
add that if the men had to suffer as a result of venereal 
disease, frequently having their sexual organs removed, 
as do women, the social evil would diminish very much. 
In conclusion we must recognize that certain factors cause 
a woman to sin a first time, while entirely different reasons 



WHY GIRLS GO WRONG 239 

cause a woman deserted by her husband or a pregnant 
girl forsaken by a false lover to enter a house of prostitu- 
tion. 



WHY MEN GO WRONG 

IN the chapter " Why Girls go Wrong," I attempted 
to show that each individual is in a large sense a law 
unto himself, in that no two persons are created alike 
in their ability to react in the same way to similar stimuli. 
What applies to woman in this respect is also true for 
man ; lower the power of resistance, increase the sus- 
ceptibility to reactions or increase the stimulus in the way 
of temptation and man will sin more quickly. The effect 
is more positive if any one or more of these conditions 
are made continual in action. 

Ask the man why he commits sexual sins and he replies, 
" Eve tempted me." Ask woman in turn and the answer 
is, " The serpent, man, is responsible." The solution is 
as unsatisfactory as the biological problem of which came 
first, the hen or the egg. 

In studying prostitution in a practical way I am im- 
pressed and depressed by the fact that the public knows 
but little of the enormous amount of the psychopathic 
state so evident in the prostitute and her co-partner in the 
awful practice of some form of perversion. Studies show 
that frequent visitations to the brothel soon produce a 
state of mental depravity exhibited as frequently, or I 
often believe more so, in the professional or business man, 
than in the laborer, because in a stage of more or less sex- 
ual excitement with less power of reason and inhibition due 
to alcoholic stimulation the passions demand unnatural 
methods of satisfaction. 

240 



WHY MEN GO WRONG Ml 

In these respects man is far inferior to the brute. The 
animal instinct is a natural attribute which provides for 
the preservation of the individual. In man with intel- 
ligence and reason we frequently observe that knowledge 
of the result of an infraction of well known physical laws 
does not prevent the offender from committing acts which 
he certainly knows will prove disastrous to himself and 
others dependent upon him. 

We well know when a man jumps into a river and rescues 
a drowning companion, he may be given a " hero medal." 
It requires many times more courage for a man to resist 
ordinary temptations or to take the stand for right prin- 
ciples in the face of adverse criticism, than to perform any 
of these glorious feats of daring in saving life. It is not 
the fear of death that prevents a man from doing these 
worthy deeds of rescue, for most men will face bullets in 
the battle with possible death in each instance. Moral 
courage demands a higher development. We need real 
men to fight in this social warfare in which so many vic- 
tims are already " battle scarred " from degeneracy and 
venereal disease. 

We need men who think of something superior and more 
lasting than the almighty dollar. Were it not for the 
greed of money to be so easily gotten in trafficking in so 
many ways in vice, our problem would be quite easy to 
solve. The merchant who sells to the brothel, the lawyer 
who acts as counsel, the physician who carelessly examines 
the prostitute, the cadet who obtains a miserable existence 
as a parasite upon these unfortunate women, the politician 
who profits by their persecution, and many others demand 
the continual existence of prostitution, making it a per- 



242 THE NEXT GENERATION 

feet system of organized vice. 

Why do men go wrong? The first answer is the nat- 
ural one of supply and demand. The first demand in the 
large city is the demand above mentioned for its necessary 
existence, not for the physiological safety of the man, 
but the demand of these vultures for this business from 
which they gain such enormous profits. The houses hav- 
ing come in existence, attractions of music, dancing, liquor, 
etc., having been added to the wiles of the prostitute, the 
patronage is soon established and then the second demand 
for so many inmates is created and is continued as long 
as demand number one is insisted upon. 

We have easily proven that with less houses and no 
attractions the visitors diminish to those still in existence ; 
but the former inmates forced into the city streets, room- 
ing houses, apartments, cry out in distress, " Here we are, 
we cannot work for small wages, we must live." Now the 
conditions are changed. It is not the demand of the men 
for those women but the demand of women for men whom 
they desire for revenue, hence she goes out in search for 
whom she may devour. 

Provide a solution as to how these women can be cared 
for charitably. Compulsory laws may be necessary where- 
by those unwilling to lead a respectable life at honest 
wages may be placed in industrial homes where they can 
comfortably live, work and save a certain portion of their 
earnings. Remove the temptation of the street from men 
who have little power of resistance and much will be ac- 
complished. 

I have already shown the fallacy of the double stand- 
ard, but I do not deny that man has ever been a slave to 



WHY MEN GO WRONG US 

the beauty of woman. " A fool there was," has been and 
will be true. Nations have fallen, homes have been de- 
serted, every crime possible committed for a woman, not 
for love, but for passions, which knew no end and over 
which reason, if it existed, had no control. 

I must repeat, good women are largely to blame for 
man's sin, for she permits him to insist that he must have 
a virtuous wife, regardless of what he may have been. 
She is willing to become a martyr and endure the surgeon's 
knife, probably death, because the disease was not cured. 
He may have repented of his physical sins but the repent- 
ance does not restore normal physical conditions which 
existed before disease, the seed is still growing. Let her 
demand a certificate of health from the man before mar- 
riage and we will soon observe that he will be more careful 
in his years of discretion. Could we compel man to have 
his organs of generation removed when he has venereal 
disease as frequently as woman must suffer for this reason, 
prostitution would cease immediately. Man would not 
endure these things he forces upon woman. 

A woman, when asked why men go wrong, replied, " They 
have never known any better. God laid down through 
Moses, the Commandments, Thou shalt not do this and 
Thou shalt not do that, but man has said to woman these 
things refer to you in which thou shalt not. Man makes 
law for man." This woman is right ; man will generally 
do what custom says is right. He will defend the flag to 
death; but insults woman repeatedly; he will be true to 
his party, but forget his church ; he will spend millions for 
coast defense, for expositions, for protection of animal 
and plant industries, but little or nothing for saving the 



244 THE NEXT GENERATION 

virtue of our daughters and the health of our wives and 
mothers. It is true they have never known any better. 

Compel the man who enters a house of prostitution to 
be examined or show a certificate in the way he demands 
of the inmate and the doors of these houses would be 
closed by the sheriff in a short time. Compel man to abuse 
himself in such a way that his life of activity would be 
shortened to a very few years, and add to this continual 
harassments, compelled to move from place to place, dis- 
graced by all men, no one to offer a helping hand should 
he desire to reform, and every legislature would call special 
sessions to speedily exterminate all who had a voice and 
hand in permitting such barbarous and pernicious condi- 
tions to exist. Is not the female child of the same flesh 
and blood as the male? Is not the daughter of the la- 
borer or the widow as dear as your daughter ? 

Would you, Mr. Man who visit the prostitute, allow 
your sister or your daughter to lead such a life? Would 
you not rise up in arms against any one who would com- 
pel them to become such? Men go wrong, because some 
one, because many of us make conditions, whereby the 
unprotected are forced by attractions of a better income 
and less misery to leave their previous troubles, to enter 
prostitution. The red light district and screened door 
silently proclaim for these victims, " Come, enter, you have 
accomplished your purpose, enter and enjoy yourself, you 
miserable ingrate, fulfill your promise, while they have 
health and beauty; they have no friends, they are out- 
casts of society, they are of your making, come and pay." 

Reviewing history for its recital of sexual sins, par- 
ticularly prostitution, we are astonished at the amount 



WHY MEN GO WRONG 245 

of literature devoted to this subject. The libertine, pros- 
titute, mistress and affinity have been ever present with 
man. India, Egypt, Babj'lon, Assyria, Greece and Rome 
furnish ancient history replete with the part played by 
these women in the rise and fall of these nations. It was 
not until in modern France that any serious considerations 
were given to the dangers of prostitution and the attempts 
to abolish the brothel were entirely due to the fearful 
destruction of the health and life of even the innocent at 
home by the spread of venereal diseases on account of the 
general co-habitation of the men of France with these in- 
fected women. 

Prostitution has always been present with us. Why? 
The answer is quite clear; the animal nature for sexual 
intercourse unrestrained by custom and philosophy of the 
various ages and places. It is useless to discuss any 
moral law or a particular sin without looking to man past 
and present, his birth, beliefs and reasons for his conduct. 
Let us not criticise others who have lived in a darker age 
committing acts repulsive to our day, for history shows 
that many of the ancients while practicing idolatry and 
strange customs were far superior to some of our intelli- 
gent American men. These same heathen would shudder 
at the sight of some of the modern sexual sins and hor- 
rible deeds practiced by those living on vice to-day. 

Rabbi Yochanan plaintively recorded, " I remember a 
time when a young man and a young woman sixteen and 
seventeen years of age could walk in the streets and no 
harm would come of it." 

In describing the Hundred Gates of Paradise the Per- 
sian writer says of gate the sixty-ninth, " We believers 



246 THE NEXT GENERATION 

beware of any intercourse with a courtesan or unchaste 
woman, also of voluntary degradation and adultery." 

Gate the seventy-fourth, " for when the wife of a 
stranger has been visited by a strange man, she becomes 
accursed to her husband; to put such a woman to death 
is more meritorious than slaying a beast of prey." 

In Hindoo literature we find, " Let the woman who 
approaches a stranger be regarded as a spirit of hell." 

These few quotations from ancient literature show us 
that our problem of combating the social evil is not a new 
one. The question before us is how we may best deal 
with the evil tendencies and social customs of the present 
time. I shall conclude by mentioning some of the factors 
which produce this evil. I am firmly convinced that we 
will accomplish but a small part of the task before us if 
we close up all the existing houses of prostitution if we 
do not deal effectively with the causes of prostitution open 
or clandestine as mentioned hereafter. 

Sex stimulations : Attractions of women, alcohol, food, 
sedentary life, evil companions, etc. 

Explanations of married men as to why they visit the 
prostitute : 

1. Unfaithfulness of wife. 

2. Illness of wife. 

3. Unwillingness of wife to have children. 

4. Unhappy home relations, as temper, unattractive- 
ness, late rising, poor cooking, card playing, extravagance, 
absence from home, etc., on the wife's part. 

5. Foreigners who have left their wives in Europe. 

6. Perversion. (These men deny this.) 



WHY MEN GO WRONG 247 

Most boys and young men are influenced to go wrong 
by: 

1. Parentage; inherited tendencies to sin. 

2. Poor home surroundings. 

3. Ignorance of sex hygiene. 

4. Belief that sexual intercourse is essential for health. 
Some fathers assist their sons to sin. 

5. Desire to see sights and to be like other boys. 

6. Habit formation. 

7. Sex-pull without restraint. 

8. Late age of marriage on account of high cost of liv- 
ing, or cost of high living. 

9. Seduction by married women ; many of these women 
exert a powerful influence over boys from fifteen years of 
age up. 

10. Laxity of social customs ; boys see that men can 
freely indulge, are not censured or quickly forgiven. 

11. Burlesque shows. 

12. Indecent literature and pictures. 

13. Some abnormal condition of sex organs. 

14. Repugnance to work. 

I am firmly convinced that many more men and women 
fall through the use of alcohol than from any other 
cause. It is a very powerful sex stimulant and coincident 
with stimulation it diminishes the power of restraint. The 
evil produced by alcohol is as great among the better 
classes of society, I truly believe much more so, than in 
the poorer ones. The saloon is the poor man's club. Re- 
move liquor from the clubs, midnight suppers and many of 
the card-parties and most of these would vanish immedi- 



248 THE NEXT GENERATION 

ately. Forbid the women to drink in public places and 
we would do more for the good of this nation than by 
millions spent for public defense or religious teachings. 
It is in these places that thousands of men and women 
first buy tickets on the railway of sexual perdition. 

As to the pulpit, I have much respect for the good that 
is being done by the clergy and believe that a united stand 
by the church can defeat any system of organized vice at 
any time and place. But I am ashamed of those who call 
themselves servants of the Lord, who have not real cour- 
age. Our city churches are largely controlled by and the 
voice of the pulpit made pleasing to those in the pews 
who must not be injured. In many cases the apathy is 
one due to protection of the prominent man who is asso- 
ciated with the evil in some way. Still prayers are offered 
up for the Lord to save the boys and girls by those 
preachers who are afraid to come out and fight the devil 
and his agents. 

There is a too general weakness of popular support in 
fighting vice. There is too much procrastination in the 
administration of justice. 

If it be pleasant to look on, stalled in the packed serai, 
Does not the Young Man try Its temper and pace ere he buy ? 
If She be pleasant to look on, what does the Young Man say? 
" Lo ! She is pleasant to look on, give Her to me to-day ! " 

Kipling — Maxim of Hafiz. 

For if I sinned and fell, where lies the Gain 
Of knowledge? Would it ease you of your Pain 
To know the tangled Threads of Revenue, 
I ravel deeper in a hopeless skein? 



WHY MEN GO WRONG 249 

" Who hath not Prudence," What was it I said, 
Of Her who paints Her Eyes and tires Her Head. 
And gibes and mocks the People in the Street 
And fawns upon them for Her thriftless Bread? 
Accursed is She of Eve's daughter, — she 
Hath cast off Prudence and Her End shall be 
Destruction****Brethren, of your Bounty grant 
Some portion of your daily Bread to Me. 

— From the Rubaiyat of Omar Kal'vin. 

Laying aside all traditional views of the Garden of 
Eden and Adam's fall, with the theological dissensions 
regarding Adam's sin affecting all, what can we say as to 
our actual sin to-day? Our reasoning has been such that 
we can conclude that the man with a healthy body is a 
responsible being and when in a normal state can will to 
do or not to do a thing. 

It naturally follows that a disordered body will produce 
an unreasonable mind, but as it is impossible for any one 
to tell at just what age the irresponsible child becomes a 
responsible youth or man, just as difficult is it to say that 
this or that man is sane or not and is accountable for 
certain actions. As the good of the community is above 
that of the individual so must the community or society in 
turn to a great extent be responsible for the individual. 
In conclusion I would say that one of our greatest sins 
this day in the disobedience of the moral laws, is our failure 
to observe the eleventh commandment; the sin of selfish- 
ness is the modern sin, and man must know that we in- 
dividually and collectively are responsible for the fall of 
the sinner and to a large extent for their remaining fallen. 
We are our brother's keeper. 



WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? 

SOME one has recently said : " The's a lot o' folks 
nowadays who take so much comfort in what a grand 
lot of ancestors they've had that they don't qualify 
to be ancestors themselves." 

In the preceding chapters we have considered many 
phases of this important subject. We first studied life, 
its many manifestations in plants and animals and finally 
the changeable nature of man. As we look at the great 
cosmopolitan mass of humanity in our large cities, as we 
read the daily papers which record so much of murder, 
theft, arson, treason, graft, malice, greed, hatred, avarice, 
jealousy and revenge, we are compelled to ask: " Who is 
responsible ? " 

To combat these perverse attributes of man, many 
forces for good, dispensing charity, love, mercy and for- 
giveness, are continually at work to prevent the pendu- 
lum from swinging too far toward individual, family, and 
state degeneration. For all things good or bad, there are 
their opposites. Nature must compensate the small ani- 
mal with speed, and often the weak may change the color 
of its coat to correspond to the color of the plants in which 
they move. 

" Think, O gentle reader, what you might have been if 
your ancestors had not been so brutalized and demoralized. 
Such is one of the absurd lengths to which the study of 
plant metaphor and of biometrics carries its disciples. 
Biometrical philosophy, as exemplified by Prof. Karl Pear- 

250 



WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? 251 

son, asks : ' What reason is there for demanding a special 
evolution for man's mental and moral side? ' No reason, 
if we regard man as analogous to a plant, or even to a 
' horse, a greyhound, or a water flea,' or if we can settle 
the question of his evolution by the computation of tables 
of statistics. With these biometrical gentlemen, heredity 
is everything, environment and education futile, except 
with selected stock. While acknowledging that the Fagins 
of London can train criminals and thieves, they deny 
philanthropists can evolve useful citizens from unpromis- 
ing material. Yet of the castaways in Doctor Barnado's 
institution, 98 per cent, became respectable citizens, while 
a similar result (97 per cent.) has been obtained in the 
city of Glasgow." — Dr. C. E. Nammack. 

Having studied the various causes which alter the de- 
velopment of a normal life, can we now conscientiously 
say that our parents are to blame because we did not make 
a greater success in life? Can we content ourselves and 
say that regardless of how we train our children, they 
will be a success or good just the same? 

It is a serious problem. The world may be getting 
better, but as we improve we see more faults, just as the 
more highly developed telescopes are able to see more of 
the milky way and " discover " bodies which have been 
there all the time. As we improve, we wish to improve. 
Stability demands sobriety and faithful service means 
honesty. If we lack stability, if we are dishonest and if 
we live in the spirit of " do all you can, when you can, as 
thoroughly as you can," society must answer the question : 
"Who is responsible?" 

We have now three solutions for man's conduct and as 



£52 THE NEXT GENERATION 

a result of his action, the condition of society: (1) man 
is what he was determined to be by his parents; (£) man 
is the product of heredity, plus the important influences 
of his surroundings ; (3) man has been predestined to be 
what he must become, try as he may, he cannot change 
the outcome. 

" In the lottery which human inheritance at present is, 
good qualities will commonly, when they appear, lack the 
support we could wish for them; but when this is true, 
there can be no doubt that much of the evil resulting from 
this can often be remedied by good social conditions. 
That is to say, we can help the individual to leave un- 
stimulated the bad and to make the most of what is good. 
Thus, in a sense, he may actually choose his ancestors. 
Instead of doing this, however, I fear we often do the 
reverse, and especially is this true when men have to appeal 
to the multitude instead of to their peers." — Professor 
Cockerall in " The Biologist's Problem." 

Were we predestined to be this or that in a strict way, 
then any reasonable man would conclude that, try as he 
might, he could influence his own character no more than 
he could change the movement of the tides or the time of 
the eclipse. Be it true or not as Emerson said : " What- 
ever is, is right," the most of us will consider the future a 
sealed book and endeavor to influence mind and matter as 
best we are able. If we are defeated in the end it will 
not be because we had to accept fate without a murmur. 

Having cast aside the belief of " convicted before birth, 
we are face to face with the only two forces which can 
influence man: heredity and environment. The study of 
heredity, like immunity to certain diseases, involves many 



WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? 253 

factors. The history of man is recorded by the deeds he 
has performed. Many scientists can only see man through 
the one field glass — inheritance — and that at a distance 
without a range-finder, without any regard to teaching, 
training, environment or external influence of any kind. 

The fact that children are said to inherit a criminal 
nature, that alcoholism in the parent may change to in- 
sanity in the child would show that no law of inheritance 
for conduct is obeyed. All the victims except many of 
the insane and other segregated defectives live in an atmos- 
phere of inebriety. Who can tell the surroundings of 
many of those who have become insane? Drunkards as a 
class become paupers, that is as far as the recorded cases 
are studied, and the result is that they and their children 
are poorly fed, poorly clothed and not educated. They 
live in an atmosphere of very bad hygienic surroundings 
with little thought of morality and in so many of these 
recorded cases they are compelled to do without medical 
attention on account of ignorance and poverty, hence the 
great death rate from inanition, etc. The great wonder 
is that society is not worse than it is. Certainly, in many 
an instance man controls his spirit of revenge, even when 
severely persecuted by oppression. 

" Blood will tell " and similar expressions have done 
much to produce a quite general opinion that children 
will always be like their parents. Careful study and good 
judgment is overcoming this fear that the child might go 
bad when the adoption of children of unknown parentage 
is considered. As already stated birth plays an important 
part, but opportunity plays a greater. We are prone to 
remember the daughter of a clergyman who goes wrong, 



254 THE NEXT GENERATION 

or the sad case of an adopted boy not turning out right. 
But I challenge any investigator to show that where a 
perfectly healthy child has been adopted into a good fam- 
ily, given a proper training in an average community, 
that he has not become as good a citizen as the average 
son of the average parent. I do not permit a considera- 
tion of exceptions, for if such should be studied, think of 
the thousands of children of good parents, with good 
homes, good education, who have gone entirely wrong. No 
child should be adopted until a careful examination is 
made by a physician to determine whether there is any 
evidence of tuberculosis, syphilis, low mentality, deformi- 
ties, etc. 

Can the investigations of any man lead you to believe 
that the education and influence of our civilization taught 
to the Indian of the Carlisle School is not accomplishing 
the results desired? Why do not all of them break loose 
and murder many? Will their offspring revert to that 
of Tecumseh? Why is it that the German who drinks 
beer from the cradle to the grave does not show as many 
drunken criminals as his English and American cousins 
who are taught to despise drink, and at the age of twenty 
to thirty may first partake of the same? The explana- 
tion of many to-day is that alcoholism is due to mixed 
drinks, and that distilled liquors should not be permitted. 
But even the German must suffer as a result of his beer 
since the German Emperor himself has set the good ex- 
ample of giving up the time honored national drink. 

In the June, 1913, Everybody's, Dr. Sleyster states that 
in a study of 592 men in a hospital for Criminal Insane, he 
found that 217 were the sons of drunkards; 311 drank to 



WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? 255 

excess ; only 57 were abstainers, and 384 spent their even- 
ings in saloons, at cheap shows or on the streets. In a 
study of 269 murderers he found that alcohol was used to 
excess by 41.5 per cent., while but 12.6 per cent, were ab- 
stainers. Nearly half were under the influence of alcohol 
when the crime was committed, and 27.9 per cent, had a 
history of previous arrest for drunkenness. 

In the same discussion on rum, Louis G. Copes says : 
" It is said that liquor ruins homes, lives, souls, health, 
morals, and what not. There is not a foundation in fact 
to this assertion. Liquor does nothing of the sort. What 
causes all the trouble is the abuse of it. The abuse of 
liquor may be and probably is, the root of practically all 
of man's iniquity ; but the temperate use of it, like the tem- 
perate use of all things made to use, is utterly beyond and 
above censure." 

These two opinions show quite conclusively that there 
are two factors in the production of alcoholism, and the 
vices and crimes which result from its abuse. We dis- 
cover man's weakness through inheritance and a lack of 
resistance peculiar to each individual. 

It naturally follows that any attempt to improve society 
and produce a more healthy race of parents must take 
into account the individual differences and how the various 
environmental influences may manifest their effect upon 
mankind. After which observations we must determine 
what things may be permitted and what must be forbidden 
in working out Church and social problems. No study 
of the effect of alcohol, for example, would be of value 
unless we had a knowledge of how many persons drank 
moderately and how many drank to excess. How many 



256 THE NEXT GENERATION 

of each of these classes were social and racial offenders, 
and why each of these so offended. Our statistics con- 
cerning the number of deaths which are due to the use of 
alcohol are of no value because in nearly every instance 
where alcohol has been a predisposing cause of the disease 
from which the person died, the cause of the death is 
given as some condition of the heart, liver, kidneys, blood- 
vessels or brain. 

In the same way we fail to observe many conditions 
produced by environment; all is blamed on heredity. 
Many nervous children are so on account of their associa- 
tion with hysterical parents. In the homes of the de- 
generate, neurotic and inebriate, there is continual strife, 
and how could the offspring, no matter how well developed 
in body and mind at birth, become other than like their 
parents in such environment. We may have epilepsy, in- 
sanity, drunkenness, in fact any form of crime where there 
is no ancestral history of same. This is what we see so 
frequently among the better classes ; these are not re- 
ported to the investigators, who collect the statistics for us. 

We know at the present time the many avenues by which 
we may acquire such diseases as tuberculosis, etc., and as 
alcoholism is a common affliction among the total number 
of people, why cannot such men, when placed in certain en- 
vironments, acquire some form of degeneracy? Why do 
we not collect the number of cases of race suicide, of in- 
digestion, men with voracious appetites and explain the 
conditions as due to inheritance? 

The opium habit is easily acquired, should the oppor- 
tunity be present, beginning as a sense of comfort from its 
use as a medicine, or for a little experience, until at last 



WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? 257 

it is impossible to destroy the habit. The country boy 
may appear perfect to his mother and best girl, but let 
him enter the city with its many entanglements, its attrac- 
tive avenues of vice, and the same boy who may have the 
misfortune to fall from grace, might have become a pillar 
in his home country church. 

Observers quite agree that but a very small per cent, 
of prostitutes are drawn into their course of life by sexual 
appetite alone, that most others are the victims of vanity 
and idleness. It is reasonable to suppose that the sus- 
ceptibility to temptations among men and women is a 
symptom and therefore unstable. Whenever great wealth 
and luxury exist side by side with inferior intelligence the 
first sign of decadence appears in the resurgence of the 
primitive instincts of sense repletion, as sexual gratifica- 
tion, etc. 

Probably nothing is so destructive to good parentage 
and prevents healthy children as venereal disease. We 
can place a large part of the blame of venereal disease 
upon ignorance. No intelligent man or woman would 
knowingly infect any one. Education of the people is 
absolutely necessary. Sex physiology must be properly 
taught to our boys and girls, preferably by their parents. 
The good of society frequently demands the restraint of 
the individual. Many innocent are afflicted — innocent 
wives, innocent husbands and innocent children. I would 
emphasize the importance of marriage of healthy persons 
for the following reasons : 

1. The child has a right to be born healthy. 

2. There would be fewer divorces, because unhealthy 



258 THE NEXT GENERATION 

husbands and wives lead to unfaithfulness and deser- 
tion. 

3. Venereal disease is the cause of 30 per cent, of the 
blindness occurring in young children ; it is the cause 
of from 50 per cent, to 60 per cent, of the operations 
upon the pelvic organs of women; it is the cause of 
at least one-half of the sterility occurring in man and 
much in women. It is the cause of a very large per- 
centage of nervous diseases in the adult. 

4. Our race is being multiplied from the lower classes of 
society. 

5. Our children will be compelled to care for many of 
the children of our present insane, epileptics, etc. 

We examine young men rigidly for military service " to 
kill " ; we do not care how future parents are diseased. 
The agricultural departments of the various states destroy 
trees, plants, and animals which are injurious to other of 
their kind. The same departments spend much time, 
energy and money to properly help the farmer; but how 
about the " boll weevils " and " yellows " of society ? The 
good of society is paramount to the rights of the individ- 
ual. The young woman must learn that a man may hon- 
estly repent of his " wild oats," but they may be still grow- 
ing. Repentance and prayer do not cure physical ills. 
They are of value, but physical ills must be cured by phys- 
ical means. 

" No law absolutely suppresses crime ; there is, however, 
an educational factor in every law that is placed upon the 
statute books, whether that law is properly enforced or 
not. No man, unless he is an imbecile, is so ignorant that 



WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? 259 

he does not know the fundamental principles of the ten 
commandments. Yet would any man say that the laws 
embodied in the decalogue are not right, or that they 
should be abolished because they are often broken? There 
is no class of persons so anxious to marry as those afflicted 
with tuberculosis. The cause of this anxiety I will leave 
with you to explain." — Dr. Burr. 

Shall mental and moral teaching cease in order that we 
may more fully show that the " laws of heredity " are true 
for succeeding generations? We are told that a muta- 
tion occurs when one species is formed from another. Do 
we forget the adjustment of man to light, heat, etc.? 
Know we not the incorporation or transformation of the 
inorganic into organic and back to inorganic in the metabo- 
lic changes of our body? The irritation of the live tis- 
sues producing again dead substances. In all cases energy 
is transformed. In man we see the various products of 
" force " dissimilarly arranged, giving us at one time 
genius, at another power, ad mfinitum. 

Harriet Beecher Stowe thus described her training by 
her Aunt Harriet, according to Miss Ida Tarbell : " My 
Aunt Harriet was no common character. According to 
her views little girls were taught to move very gently, to 
speak softly and prettily, to say 6 Yes, ma'am,' and 6 No, 
ma'am,' never to tear their clothes ; to sew and to knit at 
regular hours, to go to church on Sunday and to make all 
responses, and to come home and be catechised. Along 
with the catechism went the reading of good books. A girl 
trained like this took to books like ducks to water." 

In a review of the teaching in our large seminaries by 
Harold Bolce we find : " Young women are coming out 



260 THE NEXT GENERATION 

of colleges believing that it is absurd for humanity to 
stake its hope of salvation on much of what the Christian 
world has accepted as inspired writing. The University 
of Michigan, for example, declares that the books of the 
Bible are myth and legend, in the form of epos, hero-sage, 
fable, proverb, precept, folk-lore, primitive custom, clan 
and domestic law, and rhapsody. It is further set forth 
that these are of dubious origin. At Chicago and Cali- 
fornia it is contended that, to the scientific mind, there is 
no historic certainty that ' Jesus ever lived,' and that no 
such record (which is known to us only through tradition) 
is the basis of living faith. Unmistakably the colleges 
that teach women, as the colleges that teach men, are ar- 
rayed as an academic army against the orthodox interpre- 
tations of Holy Writ." 

Paul Van Dyke, of Princeton, says of those entering the 
large colleges : " Boys from high schools carry of honors 
out of all proportions to their numbers. Boys from the 
Social Registers in Harvard, Yale and Princeton, show a 
far lower average in ability or willingness; only one of 
166 of those with the best chance took an honor in the 
first class." 

What is our duty ? These students have doubtless con- 
vinced the unprejudiced mind that " man is his brother's 
keeper." We form one great body of communists, in that 
we should work for each other's good. Men are but units 
making up a mighty whole, resulting from many forces 
working from within and without. I grant that the ex- 
tent of man's will to do or not to do a thing, individually, 
is largely what society determines ; on the side of good we 
need and must develop the " Big Brother " or the " Large 



WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? 261 

Sister." 

Just as long as the public demands that the minds of 
the youth be filled with books at $1.08 while many of the 
best masterpieces can be purchased in better binding for 
25 cents, will the parent who permits such education be 
training the youth in the wrong direction. 

The problem of the future must be how far can the 
State interfere with man's license to do as he pleases in 
order that he may not interfere with the rights of others. 
We forbid children to play with matches to prevent fires. 
We quarantine the healthy along with the diseased to pre- 
vent the spread of the disease. We restrain the insane ; 
we are segregating the feeble-minded and we remove the 
drunkard from the streets. Since we punish drunkenness 
and try the drunken murderer for his crime, should we 
not forbid alcohol to those who become intoxicated? 
Should we not prevent the syphilitic from eating in public 
places and deny him the privilege of marriage until cured? 
We forbid the tubercular teacher from teaching, but should 
she be allowed to marry, procreate and nurse her children ? 
These are but a few of the many questions which we must 
answer satisfactorily. 

Improve society in each city, by encouraging earlier 
marriages ; by improving the conditions of the servant 
girl; by taking care of the widowed mother who is com- 
pelled to work in the factory to support her children; by 
increasing the wages of the girls behind the counters; by 
increasing social settlements ; by less extravagant forms of 
living; by better literature for the youth; by less wine 
parties for the parents; and by better hygienic condi- 
tions, as, for example, good wholesome food, fresh air, 



262 THE NEXT GENERATION 

and much water internally and externally, and, last but 
not least, let us have a few more old fashioned homes where 
the parents themselves are at home some of the evenings 
each week. A curfew for many parents would do no harm. 
In conclusion, I would say that teaching and training 
are paramount in our efforts to improve our posterity. 
We can and must make for the best in regard to those 
things which can be transmitted from one generation to 
another, but if for any reason a child is born of poor and 
vicious parents, or for any reason the child goes wrong, 
we must not lay all the blame on inheritance, but remem- 
ber that the work of the Juvenile Courts, of the Reforma- 
tories, of the Salvation Army, of the Y. M, C. A. or the 
Y. W. C. A., the Parting of the Ways, Men's Industrial 
Home, and other similar organizations of the Protestant, 
Catholic, and Jewish Churches, is doing much good. Could 
we place all the blame on our forefathers and the things 
which are inherited, what would be the value of any of 
these institutions and of religion itself? True philan- 
thropy consists in giving time, wealth, and power to all 
things which improve social conditions so that each suc- 
ceeding generation will be better every way than the pre- 
ceding one; but it does not consist in producing those 
conditions to relieve which much is later given. 

We are individually responsible for our own acts in-so- 
far as we are able to prevent them ; we are partially respon- 
sible for what our children become, and society is responsi- 
ble for not preventing many things which when done must 
be punished. Many times, try as we will to do certain 
things, all plans fail and we feel like expressing it as I 
have done in verse : 



WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? 263 



FATE 

Quite oft I would my boat direct, 
And sail the stormy seas, 
Alas, does Fate my sails unfurl! 
So heavy is the breeze. 

I stand upon the rock and wait; 
My hope of life has fled. 
The Gods declare my final fate; 
E'en though my heart hath bled. 

Together with the spark of life, 
The germ of greatness grows ; 
They both are planted by the One 
Who nations' future knows. 

If in your body seed should fall, 
To make a name renowned; 
Or if the germ should money be, 
So you in wealth abound, 

Do not yourself laud high and praise, 
For you are but a man; 
It happens that this way you fill 
Your place in God's own plan. 



APPENDIX 

HEREDITARY INSANITY A DEFENSE 

THE case of Mrs. Leckwood of Minneapolis, Minn., 
is very interesting in the study of defectives. A 
recent editorial says : " Those who take little 
stock in eugenics, or scientific mating of the human kind, 
need only read the newspaper accounts of the Leckwood 
murder case. Children of sisters married and the result 
has been two generations of children physically or men- 
tally defective or both. A child of tender years is taken 
to court to tell through her years of poverty-stricken 
home life, the abuse of the father, the pitiful infirmities 
of the mother. Such unions are high treason against 
humanity." 

The attorney of Mrs. Ida Leckwood, on trial for the 
murder of her daughter, held that she was irresponsible 
when she committed the deed, if at all, as he would prove 
by the testimony of the alienists. The statements of the 
alienists were based on the following: 

" Heredity transmission through three generations suf- 
fering from various forms of epilepsy." 

" Inter-marriage of cousins, her mother and father 
being cousins." 

Mrs. Leckwood was found not guilty, because she was 
insane when she gave the poison to her daughter. This 
is a most important case, not only to the jurist, but to 
society at large, especially to those interested in the study 

of eugenics. 

264 



APPENDIX 265 

The Supreme Court of Mississippi has recently said 
that insanity was hereditary, and such evidence was suffi- 
cient to acquit the defendant of a charge of assault and 
battery to kill. The court stated that at one time it 
seemed to have been supposed that the heredity of in- 
sanity must be proved in each case before evidence of 
insanity among blood relatives could be received. But 
the court ventured to say that no court of to-day would 
hold the necessity of proving insanity hereditary. This 
decision, like the one reported some time ago, from Min- 
nesota, must have great weight in future trials, and con- 
sequently show the necessity for more insane asylums, — 
but greater still a practice of practical eugenics. 

WHAT EUGENICS DOES NOT MEAN 

" The practice of eugenics is not opposed to religion. 
It reaches out over religion and desires to promote the 
cultivation of the same morality and ethics that true 
religion should teach. It transcends all religions. It 
unites all religions on a common fighting ground. It 
should draw its adherents from all good men of whatever 
religion, from all men who desire to better the world, to 
prevent suffering and misery. Eugenists wish to make 
eugenics a part of religion — to make it the religion of 
the religions of the future." — Dr. Myer Solomon in 
" What Eugenics Does Not Mean." 

MODERN WOMEN MATERNITY 

" The changes which have taken place in the nervous 
organization of our modern women, particularly the over 
educated or over civilized among our population, are so 



$66 THE NEXT GENERATION 

great that a large proportion have ceased to be natural 
women. This condition naturally leads to the conclusion 
that at least half of the society women are nervously unfit 
to undergo unnecessary burdens in their after life, and 
every safeguard must be employed to prevent the duties 
of motherhood from producing serious and perhaps last- 
ing effects. It is the rule rather than the exception at 
the present time that the day and evening of the city 
bred girl is entirely taken up with fixed engagements, and 
no time is left for rest and relaxation." — Dr. F. S. Newell. 
While these statements may be very strong, yet the fact 
remains that the woman of to-day is not able to endure 
the difficulties incident to bringing up a family in the same 
way as did our mothers. It is very evident that our 
social conditions must be changed in such a way that the 
girl can be better fitted for motherhood; that marriage 
may be entered into at an earlier age than is the custom. 
After the birth of the child it is necessary that it be 
nursed by the mother. Social demands must not be such 
that the child is for convenience artificially fed. 

EUGENIC BELIEF CHARITY 

" Eugenic belief extends the function of philanthropy to 
future generations. It renders its actions more prevail- 
ing than hitherto, by dealing with families and societies in 
their entirety, and it enforces the importance of the. mar- 
riage covenant by directing serious attention to the prob- 
able quality of future offspring. It strongly forbids all 
forms of sentimental charity that are harmful to the race, 
while it greatly seeks opportunity for acts of personal 
kindness as some equivalent to the loss of what it forbids. 



APPENDIX 267 

It brings the tie of kinship into prominence and strongly 
encourages love in family and race. In brief, eugenics is 
a virile creed full of hope, and appealing to many of the 
noblest feelings of our nature." — Francis Galton. 

%'A l- ■. • ■■ .. 

CRIMINALS 

" The idea that some individuals are immoral because 
of constitutional defect of the neural organism is most 
repugnant, as it seems to challenge the traditional belief 
in man's free will, and this is especially true of those un- 
familiar with mental diseases. Yet we who have delin- 
quent individuals within our care and custody know that 
there are persons who cannot refrain from crime because 
of their degenerate organizations, which predispose and 
impel them to immoral and illegal acts. . . . Why should 
not the born criminal remain in prison so long as he is 
dangerous to society? We do not release the violent and 
dangerous insane from hospitals merely because they have 
been detained there a number of years; then why should 
we release the instinctive criminal to practice his criminal 
acts upon the public? We quarantine small-pox, and we 
exile the leper; then why should we not isolate the in- 
curable moral defectives who disseminate dangerous moral 
contagion ? " — Dr. Paul E. Bowers. 

VALUE OF DISEASE IN CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

M We must be convinced that the relative decrease of 
any stock would be a net gain or loss. Take the case of 
epilepsy. It is without question in itself a very serious 
defect. But can we be absolutely certain that the dis- 
appearance of all epileptic stocks would be a net gain? 



268 THE NEXT GENERATION 

At present we know so little with regard to the correlation 
of one such character with others that we are ignorant 
concerning the full effect of the elimination of any one 
character. 

" To take another example — let us consider the case 
of tuberculosis. Here again we are faced with the 
difficulty that we do not know in the least what the net 
result of elimination of tuberculosis stocks would be. If 
all the tuberculosis stocks had been wiped out three hun- 
dred years ago, many eminent men to whom the human 
race is deeply indebted would never have been born. Of 
that we can be certain ; it is quite beyond our powers, 
however, to weigh in the balance the undoubtful mental 
and physical suffering and the material loss, due to the 
presence of a pathological stock on the one hand, and the 
services rendered by those afflicted with this defect on the 
other. Until we can make this calculation, how can we 
advocate measures that would deliberately tend toward 
the disappearance of the tuberculosis?" — A. M. Carr- 
Saunders in the Eugenics Review. 

After reading the above I thought that it would be 
very easy to answer the doubts in the mind of the writer, 
but after more deliberate consideration and a little search 
along the line of the existence of sin that good may re- 
sult, I have found that this is one of those problems that 
have puzzled philosophers for centuries. Hence, I have 
decided to allow the readers to carefully study this very 
important question. It would be profitable for all inter- 
ested to read carefully Emerson's essay on " Compensa- 
tion " before arriving at a conclusion. I will say that 
I firmly believe that we should endeavor to eliminate all 



APPENDIX 269 

disease as rapidly as possible. If Benjamin Franklin had 
an acute mind on a vegetable diet he might have had a still 
better mind with a little meat; and if the existence of tu- 
berculosis in the body has at times produced a good mind, 
the germs from that same individual may have prevented 
by early death the development of still greater minds. 

eugenics: biological 

" The problem of eugenics and evolution are primarily 
biological, but can be approached only if social conditions 
allow the application of biological methods." ..." I can 
in imagination see the day when the compilation of in- 
heritance data for each citizen will be compulsory, and 
when the files of these records will be most valued of 
all state documents; when no marriage license will be 
issued except after the most careful searching of the in- 
heritance; and when the State will debar from marriage 
those whose children will be a burden to the State. The 
bearing of children is, of course, not an individual right, 
but a social privilege, and in time it must come to be so 
recognized." — Prof. Maynard Metcalf in " Eugenics and 
Euthenics." 

EUGENIC LIMITS 

Prof. Herbert Miller, in the " Psychological Limit of 
Eugenics," says, " I am not denying a great deal of good 
in this movement, but too little attention has been given 
to either psychology or sociology by the eugenists, and un- 
justifiable conclusions have been drawn. ... I myself am 
convinced that as a move for race improvement, the equal 
suffrage of women, with the eventual consequent assump- 



270 THE NEXT GENERATION 

tion of intellectual and moral responsibility and economic 
independence, would be infinitely more valuable than all the 
eugenic laboratories in the world. We should use all the 
forces of science in dealing with pathological conditions, 
ibut an attempt at artificial selection of mental and moral 
characteristics is working in the wrong direction." 

An editorial in the Journal of the American Medical 
Association on " The Limitations of Eugenics " says : 
" Let us therefore hesitate to charge all defects to 
heredity, to make men irresponsible, to hold that every- 
thing is predetermined. One antidote lies in ' euthenics ' 
or the science of uncontrollable environment in the appeal 
to develop the unknown possibilities of our inheritance. 
Such a doctrine brings vigor and inspiration. It gives 
a chance for self-discovery. Responsibility makes men 
wrest from themselves powers which otherwise would re- 
main latent. Supposed defective inheritance or arrested 
development is sometimes merely the expression of some 
inhibition which can be overcome by intelligent control 
from within or without. ' To most of us heredity has 
been kind — kinder than we know.' " 

MARRIAGE ADVICE 

Prof. E. G. Conklin says : " Giving advice regarding 
matrimony is proverbially a hazardous performance. . . . 
With a more complete knowledge with regard to the in- 
heritance of human defects than we now possess, at least 
in many instances, it will be probably possible to give 
such advice wisely ; but apart from certain bodily pe- 
culiarities, he would be a bold prophet who would under- 
take to predict the type of personality which might be 



APPENDIX 271 

expected in the children of the given union. Some very 
unpromising stocks have brought forth wonderful 
products." And we might add that some promising 
stocks have brought forth some poor products. 



" Any consideration that may be shown the confirmed 
criminal by society should be regarded as entirely gra- 
tuitous and founded purely upon humane impulses, which 
forbid unnecessary cruelty. Maudlin sentimentality in 
behalf of a degenerate's possible posterity, which would 
probably rule against its own birth had it any choice in 
the matter, should weigh but little in the balance of social 
welfare. The primordial right of man is the right to live. 
The law does not hesitate to execute the murderer, despite 
the fact that upon the average he is of all criminals the 
least dangerous to society. Liberty is a right of man which 
cannot be gainsaid, yet the law does not hesitate to im- 
prison for life on occasion. In imprisonment for life or 
capital punishment it would be somewhat difficult to see 
any conservation of the rights of the criminal's posterity 
or of his sex rights, from the sentimentalist's standpoint. 
Under the protection of society against the criminal so 
sentenced, because of the danger of escape, on the one 
hand, and of pardon on the other." 

INFANT MORTALITY 

In fighting against the causes of infant mortality, Dr. 
Saleeby says : " Conditions initiated in the slums and 
public houses by some social workers are not natural, they 
are hideously unnatural. 



<m% THE NEXT GENERATION 

" Eugenists of the extreme school forget the impor- 
tance of nurture before birth, of prenatal influences due 
to environment. They assume that it is simply a question 
of heredity from birth, when it has been proved that in- 
fections and the forces of malnutrition have been playing 
on the child for months before birth. The nurture of the 
mother is therefore just as important as if the child had 
been fed on gin and pickles after birth." 



A PRACTICAL STUDY OF THE SOCIAL EVIL* 

IN the tables which follow an analysis is made of over 
500 prostitutes, and many landladies, in such a way 
that we can probably account for their choice of this 
life and reason for remaining in it. It is quite true that 
many girls will yield for the first time to a married man, 
because they know he will seldom tell, and they are not 
so afraid of becoming pregnant by such men. I firmly 
believe that the large majority of houses of prostitution 
are supported by married men. It is so with all of the 
high-priced houses, and many of the patrons to the 
cheaper houses are married foreigners, whose wives are in 
Europe. Cut out the married men, and most of the houses 
would cease to exist. In some of the tables the land- 
ladies are included. In all tables there are some who did 
not answer that particular question. 

SEDUCER MARRIED OR SINGLE 

Married 95 Single 250 

Adolescence, or the period of sexual development is full 
of physiological changes with the incident irritations pro- 
duced by these changes. This irritability, without a 
knowledge and proper restraint, is sure to bring ill re- 
sults. The conscience of the adolescent who has not be- 
come seared from sin can be more easily awakened than in 

* This study was made in January, 1913. In 1914 the Morals 
Bureau closed all of the remaining houses of prostitution in Pittsburg. 

273 



274 THE NEXT GENERATION 

later years. This is the age of sex companionship. The 
natural animal nature for mating is at its height. Wit- 
ness the pairing of even small children of the opposite sex. 
The table of age seduction shows that at the age of 
sixteen to eighteen, when physiological development is at 
its height and parental restraint is beginning to yield, over 
one-half of the girls are first seduced. 

AGE WHEN SEDUCED 

Age Age Age 

12 ^ 17 113 22 to 25 12 

13 6 18 HO 26 to 30 ... . 1 

14 17 19 69 

15 53 20 39 16 to 18 ... .298 

16 ?5 21 16 All other ages. 217 

Over one-half the prostitutes entered houses between 

eighteen and twenty-one. There is little parental re- 
straint, they have freely indulged in sexual intercourse, 
continually frequent the cafes and hotels, meet those of 
the underworld, and are impressed by their life of ease, 
with good incomes and fancy clothes, after which the last 
step is easy. Certainly these two tables are of interest, 
and should be of much value to parents, the church and 
society. 

AGE WHEN ENTERED UPON PROSTITUTION 

Age Age 

14 1 17 

15 1 19 



16 



8 

44 

18 to 21 257 



A PRACTICAL STUDY OF SOCIAL EVIL 275 

Age Age 

20 75 25 to 28 64 

21 113 29 to 35 15 

22 to 24 162 Other ages 217 

It will be noticed that after the age of twenty-four 
they rapidly leave the life. They are less attractive, ill, 
married, or become kept women, to say nothing of those 
completely lost to the world. 

PRESENT AGE OF INMATES 

Age Age Age 

21 1 27 43 35 to 36 12 





Age 


1 


27 . 


41 


28 . 


73 


29 . 


89 


30 . 



22 41 28 39 39 to 48 6 

23 



25 57 31 to 32 21 22 to 25 260 

26 40 33 to 34 24 Other ages ... 258 

The cause of polygamy and polyandry is not easy to 
determine. Does polygamy prevent prostitution? Many 
men supporting the same prostitutes, is certainly a form 
of polyandry. Polygamy permits more mothers and more 
children. Polygamy permits the husband to cohabit if 
one or more of his wives be ill or incompatible. 

This table is of little value, except to show that many 
deserted women, who have led a loose life at home, drift 
into prostitution. Certainly many who say they are 
single have been married. 



276 THE NEXT GENERATION 

MARRIED, SINGLE OR WIDOW 

Married or divorced, 119 Single . . .359 Widow . . .84 

The nature of woman is such that in most cases the 
normal instinct is such that they desire and expect to 
become mothers. So strong is this instinct that fre- 
quently the woman will resort to sexual intercourse with 
man, outside of wedlock, in order that she may become a 
mother ; this being the only reason for the act. 

It is held that marriage is the result of children, rather 
than that children are the result of marriage. Every 
woman has an inherited right to become a mother. While 
society demands that wedlock should be entered into for 
this purpose, yet society now realizes that the innocent 
child born outside of wedlock should not suffer, and already 
several States have enacted laws making all children legiti- 
mate, in that every child has a right to inherit property 
as well as its characteristics from both parents. 

CHILDREN LIVING OR DEAD 

None 406 2 dead 12 

1 living . ., 66 3 living . . . ., 4 

1 dead 50 4 living 1 

2 living 19 Total who had children . 152 

This table includes about fifty landladies, many of whom 
were prostitutes before owning houses. Other things 
being equal, the mother of the illegitimate child will seek 
prostitution more frequently from necessity to support 
her child than will the girl who has not been so unfor- 
tunate. In most cases the stigma can be no worse, from 



A PRACTICAL STUDY OF SOCIAL EVIL 277 

the girl's viewpoint; she is an outcast. Society does not 
properly care for these women. The grass widow with 
children will enter prostitution more quickly than the one 
without children to support, providing she was unfaithful 
in her marital life. Certainly many prostitutes are sup- 
porting children who are in the homes of relatives, friends, 
asylums, etc. 

The attempt is frequently made to reduce immediate 
and contradictory elements, as they are given in life, to 
expressions which would indicate necessary conditions. 

Lecky, the historian, who wrote on " European Morals 
Since the Beginning of the Christian Era," said : " The 
supreme type of vice is at the same time the most efficient 
guardian of virtue." Solon established brothels in Athens, 
Greece and Rome and encouraged prostitution. Dr. 
Woolsey, believini as many others have always held, that 
the devil is bound to have a share anyway, advocated that 
the divorced woman should not be allowed to marry, and 
we should allow the recruits for prostitution to be ob- 
tained from this class of women. This, he said, would put 
the devil off with the least. Were such a custom decreed 
to be best for society, witness the rush to the marriage 
altar and the great haste they would make to reach Reno, 
with the financial assistance of the accommodating hus- 
band, who would, he well knows, reap a rich reward for 
his valor and suffering. Is it possible that this Dr. 
Woolsey is the discoverer or creator of our " cadets " of 
to-day? Many a one of these succeed in having a real or 
false marriage performed, only later to have his " wife " 
enter a house of prostitution, that he may exist as a 
degraded parasite on innocent girls and society. 



278 THE NEXT GENERATION 

Let me ask you if prostitution is a safeguard to society ? 
Would the unmarried men attack the women in the streets 
if there were no houses for their pleasure? Common sense 
says that they would not do so. There are no houses in 
the country districts, in most of the smaller cities, and in 
many of the large cities. Rape on woman is not a com- 
mon offense. It is the result of degeneracy, generally 
seen in the pervert. Only a very small proportion of the 
men from the districts mentioned come to the cities where 
houses exist. There is just as much intercourse in large 
cities outside of houses of prostitution as in those loca- 
tions where they do not exist. Houses of prostitution are 
supported by married men. Therefore the solution be- 
comes still a greater problem. 

We have very carefully questioned a large number of the 
girls who state that low wages were the cause of their 
downfall. The prostitute is too willing to give a hard 
luck story in order that she may be excused for her life. 
Her conscience is not disturbed by frequent visits to the 
Ananias Club, hence she often forgets the truth. Some 
of the girls who gave a low wage with their previous occu- 
pation never did work away from home. At least one- 
fourth of our girls never made their living before. I be- 
lieve that very few of the prostitutes in Pittsburgh began 
the life on account of poverty alone. Low wages is a 
very important factor in producing social conditions where 
the parental cares and home influences are of a very low 
order. In such a state of society, many a girl whose 
home life is unpleasant, whose parents if alive care little 
for the girl except she be able to provide a few dollars 
toward her own and probably family expenses each week, 



A PRACTICAL STUDY OF SOCIAL EVIL 279 

will easily be led into the ways of the frequenters of the 
cheap cafes, dance halls, etc., and in a short time she is 
adding to her regular earnings, not because she was com- 
pelled to continue to make this extra money. Whether 
she will become an inmate of a house is determined by many 
factors, as companions, home ties, alcoholism, etc. 

Miss A., twenty-three years of age, born and raised in 
a small town fifty miles from Pittsburgh. Father had 
small business. Mother dead. Step-mother not very kind 
to girl, who gave birth to illegitimate child two years ago. 
Was allowed to go to Pittsburgh and work in store as 
clerk at $6.00 a week. Boarded at Home for Christian 
Girls, room and board $4.50 a week; other expenses ex- 
ceeding small balance. To-day she is earning an average 
of $25.00 a week as a prostitute. She frequently writes 
for a little money from home, saying she cannot get along 
on $6.00 a week. (This is from report from her town.) 
She says she is sending home several dollars a week to help 
support child. 

The report shows 169 classed as servants, which in- 
cludes cooks, maids, etc. These are largely foreign girls 
with no home or parents in this country. They are easily 
led astray. But the servant girl in Pittsburgh does not 
need to enter prostitution to support herself, or even her- 
self and baby. 

PREVIOUS OCCUPATION AND WAGES 

Waitress from $3 to $7 50 

Factory from $2 to $10 . . 53 

Nurse girl from $1.50 to $4 10 

Servant from $1.50 to $7 169 

Clerk from $3.00 to $8 , 51 



280 THE NEXT GENERATION 

Cashier from $6 to $12.50 3 

Canvasser from $4.00 , 1 

Laundry from $3.00 to $6 14 

Actress, from $40.00 1 

Home.. 118 

Milliner from $6.00 3 

Seamstress from $3.00 to $10.00 14 

Manicurist from $5.00 1 

Telephone Operator from $3.50 5 

Chorus girl from $10 to $12 2 

Office work from $2 to $15 4 

Flower girl from $4 to $5 4 

Music teacher 1 

Furmaker $4.00 1 

Governess $5.00 1 

REASON FOR ENTERING HOUSE 

Seduced and motherhood 10 

Money . ., 90 

To support self 145 

To support baby 24 

To support parents 14 

To support brother and sister 4 

Had to 1 

111 health 9 

Discouraged and no work 36 

No particular reason , 34 

Always bad 15 

Home troubles 8 

No place to go 27 

Deserted by husband 7 



A PRACTICAL STUDY OF SOCIAL EVIL 281 

We must not forget in explaining why girls enter prosti- 
tution that we are prone to think only of the girl who is 
actually an inmate of a house. These few hundreds are 
but a small proportion of the girls who are continually 
engaged in prostitution. The many hundreds who work 
as stenographers, clerks, manicurists, etc., during the day, 
and have their friends for profit at night, the kept woman 
with her pleasant apartments with plenty of money to 
spend, all these women are prostitutes as surely as the 
inmates of a house. Very often the visitor to the cheap 
house with pride takes " his girl " from the brothel, and 
keeps her in the same way and for the same reason as 
Mr. B., the wealthy business man, provides for Madam X., 
only on a cheaper scale. MANY OF THE PRESENT 
INMATES WOULD NOT BE WHERE THEY ARE 
IF THEY COULD HAVE HAD A LITTLE BETTER 
HOME LIFE, AND MANY WHO ARE NOT IN THE 
BROTHEL WOULD GO THERE, COULD THEY 
NOT OBTAIN THE SOCIETY THEY DESIRE WITH 
SEX INDULGENCES WHICH THEY EXPERI- 
ENCE. 

REASON FOR REMAINING IN HOUSE 

Money 112 

To support self 168 

To support baby 22 

To support parents 22 

To support brother and sister 8 

To support nieces 2 

Because I like it 23 

Can't better conditions 35 



282 THE NEXT GENERATION 

No other home 32 

Good health now 2 

Till I can get married 6 

Ashamed to ask for work 4 

Good treatment here . . . . 7 

Easy life 17 

No reason 80 

The prostitute never acknowledges her full income. Ac- 
cording to the report of 458, their share averages over 
$10,000. It can safely be stated that the present 500 
girls retain from their one-half over $12,500 a week, or 
over $600,000 a year, which would be $1,200,000 a year 
left by the visitors at the present time. What must it 
have been a year ago, when there were almost a thousand 
girls and much was spent for liquor, dance, and music? 
The economic phase of the problem is a large one. 

AVERAGE WEEKLY INCOME 

From $5 to $8 10 From $25 to $30 30 

From 9 to 10 26 From 35 to 40 36 

From 11 to 15 81 From 45 to 50 25 

From 16 to 20 129 From 55 to 75 17 

From 20 to 25 93 From 80 to 100 8 

About 25 per cent, of the girls state that they have a 
bank account. I doubt if over 10 per cent., if that many, 
have any sum in the bank for illness or to quit the life. 
Since the large majority of these girls claim directly or 
indirectly that their life is due to poverty, low wages, to 
support others, etc., and since their own reports show that 
they make plenty to save, but not over 10 per cent, actu- 



A PRACTICAL STUDY OF SOCIAL EVIL 283 

ally do save any money, it certainly shows conclusively that 
poverty and low wages is not the real cause of the girls' 
going wrong. 

HAVE YOU A BANK ACCOUNT? 

Yes 115 No 366 

There are several interesting deductions to be made 
from the last four tables and the one on birthplace. It 
can be stated conclusively that where the parents are dead 
or an unkind step-parent exists, the girl is much more 
likely to be led astray. The religion of parents does 
not appear to be a factor, as the figures stand in about 
the proportion of religious beliefs of the general popula- 
tion. The increase in the ratio of the Jewish to other 
religions is high, but this is due to the large number of 
foreigners of this belief. 

The circumstances of parents and occupation of father 
compare very favorably with the general population, and 
argues that people sin in all walks of life. The numbers 
from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and from various States 
are in direct relation to distance from Pittsburgh and ease 
of access. The birthplace of the foreign girl compares 
very well with the proportion of various nationalities com- 
ing to Pittsburgh in the present decade. 

PARENTS LIVING OR DEAD 

(Landladies and Inmates.) 

Both dead 260 Mother living 103 

Both living 87 Father living 72 



284 



THE NEXT GENERATION 



RELIGION 

(Landladies and Inmates.) 

Protestant 272 Free-thinker 1 

Catholic 188 Spiritualist 1 

Jewish 67 Agnostic 1 

Dunkard 1 



FATHER WEALTHY, WELLrTO-DO, MODERATE CIRCUM- 
STANCES OR POOR? 

(Landladies and Inmates.) 
Wealthy. 2 Well-to-do. 10 Mod. cir. 152 Poor. 254 

OCCUPATION OF FATHER 



Contractor 17 

Carpenter 18 

Stone mason 6 

Laborer 135 

Postmaster 1 

Engineer 11 

Tailor 8 

Farmer 70 

Real Estate 1 

Mill Superintendent ... 2 

Clerk 21 

Painter 8 

Machinist 6 

Pumper 4 

Shoemaker . 4 

Blacksmith 8 



Plumber 4 

Bookkeeper 2 

Miner 29 

Officer 3 

Brakeman 4 

Driver 1 

School teacher 2 

Physician 1 

Conductor 1 

Waiter 1 

Merchant 10 

Fireman 7 

Florist 2 

Plasterer 1 

Mechanic 13 

Saloonkeeper 3 



A PRACTICAL STUDY OF SOCIAL EVIL 285 

Cook 2 Attorney 2 

Milkman 2 Mill 6 

Butcher 4 Hotel 2 

Broker 1 Editor 1 

Mechanic 13 Actor 1 

Baker 2 Manager 1 

Pattern maker 1 Glazier 1 

Bartender 1 Glass worker 1 

Cigar maker 1 Rabbi 1 

Oil driller 1 Don't know 85 

BIRTHPLACE COUNTRY, STATE OR CITY 

(Landladies, House-keepers and Inmates.) 

Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh, 154; Philadelphia, 10; 
Surrounding Cities, 29; Rest of Pennsylvania, 151. 
Total 344 

Arkansas, 1 ; California, 2 ; Colorado, 2 ; Connecticut, 
1 ; Georgia, 1 ; Illinois, 4 ; Indiana, 2 ; Iowa, 1 ; 
Kansas, 1 ; Kentucky, 5 ; Louisiana, 2 ; Maryland, 
7 ; Massachusetts, 2 ; Michigan, 2 ; Missouri, 2 ; 
Nebraska, 1 ; New Jersey, 4 ; New York, 34 ; North 
Carolina, 1 ; Ohio, 49 ; Tennessee, 4 ; Texas, 7 ; Vir- 
ginia, 7; Vermont, 1; West Virginia, 22. Total. .157 

Foreign : Austria, 51 ; Canada, 2 ; Denmark, 1 ; Eng- 
land, 3 ; Germany, 16 ; Holland, 1 ; Ireland, 3 ; 
Italy, 9; Russia, 18; Scotland, 3; Sweden, 2; 
Switzerland, 1. Total 110 



Complete Total 611 



286 THE NEXT GENERATION 

WHAT OF THE FUTURE OF THE PROSTITUTE? 

Death treads in pleasure's footsteps round the world, 
When pleasure treads the paths which reason shuns. 
—Young's " Night Thoughts." 

Where reason does not exist it cannot shun. The ob- 
ject lesson of others' fate does not deter many an indi- 
vidual from pursuing the much-desired pleasures of life. 
The sorrow is that 'tis seldom that contrition is manifest 
after the wasted life in sin. There is much relief to the 
observing boon companion of the old sinner ; " surely," 
she says, " she was not bad, see how easily she passes 
away." There is seldom the expression of agony in the 
dying face of the worst criminals. 

What shall we do with the prostitute? Treat her as 
Christ said. She is no more vile than many others ; to 
rescue her you must study her nature, her pleasures and 
pains. She must be given a chance to live without the 
idea that society demands that she go wrong. She must 
be told and compelled to realize that honest work is no 
disgrace and that any work is better than disgrace. 

Give her a chance, extra assistance to regain her power 
of reasoning ; then if she refuses to show herself a woman, 
the humane and rational treatment is the Industrial Re- 
formatory, where she can be taught a good trade, prob- 
ably allowed to accumulate a little for herself, and learn 
the experiences of the well-behaved in society. These re- 
sults can be carried out by the many good societies now 
wondering how they can do something practical. It is 
for those who sing, " Throw Out the Life Line ! " " Res- 
cue the Perishing," " Hold the Fort, for I am Coming," 



A PRACTICAL STUDY OF SOCIAL EVIL 287 

etc. I have much sympathy for practical work, but only 
condemnation for " faith without work." 

For those who are in earnest and wish to lessen the 
number of perishing and stray sheep on the hills, wild and 
bare, there is one real line of practical work — prophy- 
laxis, or prevention. The illustration showing that it is 
better to build a fence around the precipice than a hos- 
pital in the valley below, is certainly to the point. It has 
been shown that it is cheaper to purify the water and kill 
the mosquito than to care for the typhoid and yellow- 
fever patients, to say nothing of the suffering and deaths 
from these diseases. Our studies have shown us that 
good parents who care for their children, provide good 
innocent amusement, properly guard their companion- 
ship, are interested in the kind of books they read, see 
that the girl's dress is proper, know why and where they 
allow them to visit a friend over night, what time the 
beau leaves at night, do not allow them to patronize eating 
places where liquor is served, and first, last and at all 
times properly explain to these children what is right and 
wrong — such parents will seldom have girls go wrong. 
We are then to teach the parents, and if the parents re- 
fuse to do their duty, it will be up to the State to take 
charge of these children, as it now does when it is too 
late to prevent the criminal. In our plan of prevention 
we shall not forget the part played by man in the girl's 
downfall. Make it a severe punishment to take a minor 
girl into a drinking place or assignation house. Every 
girl is somebody's daughter. What if she were yours? 



288 



THE NEXT GENERATION 



HOW LONG IN DIFFERENT HOUSES? 



From 6 to 8 months. 


. . 15 


From 1 to 2 years . . 


..133 


From 2 to 3 years. . 


. . 76 


From 3 to 4 years. . 


. 68 


From 4 to 5 years . . 


. 76 


From 5 to 7 years. . 


. 52 


From 7 to 10 years. 


. 47 



10 to 13 years 5 

14 to 18 years 8 

20 years 1 

Over 5 years Ill 

Over 7 years 63 

Over 9 years 18 



HOW LONG DO YOU EXPECT TO REMAIN IN BUSINESS.' 



Will leave as soon as possi- 
ble 8 

As long as fate has assigned 3 

As long as I must support 
others 8 

As long as my health per- 
mits 3 

Until I have sufficient funds 29 



Don't know and in- 
definite 271 

Till out of debt... 4 

Till I get tired 4 

1 to 6 months 8 

1 to 3 years 41 

Till I can marry. . 35 

All my life 5 



Celibacy of the priest or righteous continence in others, 
is not without a struggle. No matter how imperious the 
self-control, the tendency still exists, and its perpetual 
suppression is a sacrifice to the supremacy of a higher 
law. 



REASONS WHY MANY MARRIED PERSONS SEEK 
OTHERS ADULTERY 

1. Improper mating, especially a difference in intel- 
lects. There is less discord among the peasants and 
working people on account of difference in moral and in- 
tellectual faculties, than in the higher classes of society. 



A PRACTICAL STUDY OF SOCIAL EVIL 289 

2. Unfaithfulness. 

3. Illness. 

4. Unwillingness for children. 

5. Unhappy home relations as temper, unattractiveness, 
late rising, poor cooking, card playing, extravagance, 
absence from home, alcoholism, etc. 

6. Foreigners who leave their wives in Europe. 

7. Perversion. 

8. Neglect of physical charms after marriage. 

9. Absence of loving caresses. 

10. Man wants what he wants when he wants it. 

An intellectual woman has a tendency to become an 
adventuress. Good behavior is protective where these 
women are known. Thomas says : " Many women of fine 
natural character and disposition are drawn in a momen- 
tary and incidental way into an irregular life, drift 
further, are married, and make uncommonly good wives. 
If you drive nature out at the door, she will come back 
through the window, and this interest in greater stimula- 
tions is, I believe, the dominant force in determining the 
choice, or rather the drift of the so-called sporting woman. 
She is seeking what from the psychological standpoint 
may be called a normal life." 

POVERTY AND SOCIAL, FACTORS 

One per cent, of the families in the United States own 
more than the other 99 per cent. 

In this country there are 4,000,000 paupers. 

In a recent winter there were 70,000 children who came 
to school in New York hungry. 



290 THE NEXT GENERATION 

Lydston says in an article on this subject that whatever 
argument may be brought to bear upon the social evil, 
nothing can controvert these fundamental propositions: 

1. Prostitution has always existed in society in one 
form or another. 

2. Its frequency and form have adapted themselves to 
the conditions imposed by the customs of each social 
system. 

8. Latter-day social and economic conditions are favor- 
able to prostitution. 

4. Prostitution keeps pace with civilization. As this 
advances prostitution increases. The proportion of pros- 
titutes is greater to-day than formerly. 

5. Modern industrial enterprises are peculiarly produc- 
tive of conditions favoring prostitution. 

6. Prostitution is responsible for a large proportion of 
the diseases that' afflict the race. 

7. No universally effective method of repression or reg- 
ulation has ever been devised. 

8. Suppression is an absolute impossibility under pres- 
ent conditions. 

When lovely woman stoops to folly, 

And finds too late that men betray, 
What prayer can soothe her melancholy, 

What charm can wash her guilt away? 
The only art her guilt to cover, 

To hide her shame from every eye, 
To give repentance to her lover, 

And wring his bosom — is to die. 

— Goldsmith. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

019 566 967 3 



